Digging by Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Ltd (KPTCL) has put U P Mallya Road (the road stretch from Hampankatta Junction/Wenlock Hospital till Nehru Maidan) in Disaster Putting Peoples’ Lives in DANGER
Mangaluru: Once again quoting my signature tagline “Digging Never stops in Mangaluru”, following the M G road which took a severe beating a couple of weeks ago from PVS Junction to Mangaluru City Corporation building at Lalbagh, and travelling on this stretch of the road was a NIGHTMARE for motorists and pedestrians, the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Ltd (KPTCL) took up the digging on U P Mallya Road (the road stretch from Hampankatta Junction/Wenlock hospital till Nehru Maidan) and with most of the work completed, the labourers have left a mess behind, putting the lives of the motorists and pedestrians in DANGER! Employees of Wenlock Hospital are facing hardship crossing the dug-up road, and could end up with injures if they fall into the pit.
This road has been dug several times in the past, and there has been no stop to it-and now once again we are seeing the pathetic and treacherous condition of the road. No doubt, digging up new concrete roads has become routine in the coastal city, and MG Road is the latest addition to the series. The busy road stretch has been dug up for the laying of underground cables by Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation (KPTCL), leading to traffic snarls. The concrete road was initially dug up for underground drainage (UGD) work, and now again to replace the interlocks with concrete pavement. Despite MCC Mayor Sudheer Shetty Kannur saying that engineers have been directed to take necessary precautions while digging up roads in the city, however, that has. not worked out to be true.
Rigid pavement or concrete roads were thought of as a solution to provide permanent relief from battered roads after monsoon. But the citizens’ joy of having major thoroughfares of the city concreted has been short-lived. From the start, the dangers of having rigid pavement were exposed since the authorities laid the concrete over the existing road without relocating the utilities or having ducts for future utilities. This has led to cutting the rigid pavement all through the year, which has left concrete roads no better than asphalted roads. Before this massive concretization drive, the majority of the 1,133 km of roads in the coastal city under the Mangaluru City Corporation remained in motorable condition for only six months starting from December to May.
Rest of the year, the motorists and the public had a torrid time as the monsoon battered roads. That changed when the BJP government was in power the city’s arterial roads were converted into rigid pavement using the chief minister’s Special Grants of Rs 100 crore per annum. But the midsummer night dream was a tad too long to last. At present, the laying of essentials like underground cables or optic fibre cables is leading to breaking the rigid pavement again and again, after the concrete road was laid less than six months back. Though the KPTCL’s UG cable laying operations on a busy stretch of MG Road has been over, with restoration pending, it has now proceeded to the Hampankatta area, causing untold misery to motorists, pedestrians as well as tax-paying citizens, whose money is being wasted.
Not only the money has been wasted, which finally citizens have to cough up as taxes or utility charges, but the two lanes have been converted to single lanes leading to erratic, chaotic traffic all day long. Mayor Sudheer Shetty Kannur expressed his helplessness saying that the works were taken up before he assumed charge and he admitted that there should have been coordination between MCC and various other agencies, which require roads for laying cables or other utilities. He assured that future works during his tenure would be taken up with due consultation with other government departments and utility providers.
Sources said that KPTCL got the Rs 10 crore project sanctioned recently, when all rigid pavement works were over, hence they could not coordinate with the City Corporation. The KPTCL is laying 3.6 km of 110kV UG cable which will provide a stable connection from Bejai station to Nehru Maidan. The cables are being laid at a depth of 1.7 meters from the ground surface.
