Justice Hegde Launches District’s 1st Solar..

Justice Hegde Launches District’s 1st Solar Village Project

Kundapur: The Solar Village project and various other development projects initiated by the Amasebail Charitable Trust in association with Amasebail Gram Panchayat, Zilla Panchayat Udupi, Taluk Panchayat Kundapur, Shri Kshetra Dharmasthala Rural development project, Karnataka Bank Mangaluru, and Karnataka Fisheries development corporation were inaugurated at Amasebail here, on June 1.

The dignitaries inaugurated different developmental projects on the occasion. Justice Santhosh Hegde (retired Judge and former Lokayukta) inaugurated the Solar light installation project, while Haladi Srinivas Shetty (MLA Kundapur) inaugurated the new fish market. Dinakar Babu (president, Udupi Zilla Panchayat) inaugurated the new agriculture market and drinking water unit, while Jayaram Bhat (Executive Director, Karnataka Bank) inaugurated the new boys’ toilet facility in Government High School Amasebail.

The programme began with an invocation by the school children. A G Kodi (former chairman of the Third Karnataka State Finance Commission and president of Amasebail Charitable Trust) welcomed the gathering and said that the Amasebail Charitable Trust had been formed for the purpose of initiating development works and welfare projects in Amasebail. The trust has decided to install solar lamps in 1,497 houses in the Naxal-affected Amasebail Gram Panchayat. The total cost of installation of the solar lamps is Rs 2.13 crore.

Of this, Rs 1.39 crore is being provided by the union and the state governments under various schemes. The Amasebail gram panchayat will be installing 20 solar street lights from its funds at a cost of Rs 23,500.

Justice Santhosh Hegde retired Judge and former Lokayukta inaugurated the stage programme by lighting the lamp.

In his inaugural message, Justice Santhosh Hegde lauded the efforts of the Amasebail Charitable Trust for its selfless work towards Amesebail village. He also said that all the three pillars of democracy — legislature, executive and judiciary — and the media, which is considered as the fourth estate, have been sapped of energy owing to rampant corruption. No other Constituent Assembly will be capable of drafting another Constitution which can surpass the values of the Indian Constitution, he added.

Drawing an analogy between the elected representatives then and now, Hegde said the constituent assembly of 1946 had a debate on a serious issue – Who should have the right to elect their representatives? Should every Indian be given the right to contest the polls?

“While a member wanted to make educational qualifications mandatory for candidates to take part in the hustings, others disagreed. Another member asserted that it would be unfair to make education a criterion as 80 percent of the total population of India was illiterate. If they had then complied with the decision, democracy would have been restricted to only 20 percent of the masses. The Constitution of India recognizes every citizen as supreme. Similarly, the Legislative, Executive and Judiciary are organs that serve people as the servants of the Indian Constitution. However, it is unfortunate that all the three organs of Indian Constitution have failed to serve its citizens,” he added.

He further said that ‘honesty’ is a word which often does not go well with elected representatives. Most elected representatives think on the lines of how fast they can make money. They forget the fact that they have been chosen to serve the people. When two organs of democracy, Legislative and Executive, failed, the people pinned hopes on the judiciary for a long time, thinking that it would come to their rescue.

“From the Nira Radia case, we came to know about the secrecy of paid news. After exploiting the three pillars of democracy, namely the legislature, the judiciary and the executive, corruption has also infected the media. There is not a single institution free from corruption. There ought to be zero tolerance towards corruption in every field,” said Hedge.

Giving an account of the rise of scams since the post-independence era, Hegde said that the Jeep scam worth Rs 17 lakh was the first to tumble out in the year 1948, followed by the infamous Bofors worth Rs 60 crore in the year 1986, the 2G scam worth Rs 1.76 lakh crore in 2010 and the coal scam worth Rs 1.86 lakh crore in 2012.

Concluding his speech, Justice Hegde appealed to the students to wake up and cleanse the system before it reaches the point of no-return.

Dr L H Manjunath (executive director, Shri Kshetra Dharmasthala Rural development project) presided over the function. Jayalaxmi Shetty (president, Amasebail Gram Panchayat), Hiriyanna (president) and V K Shetty (managing director of Karnataka Fisheries development corporation), Jayashree Mogaveera (president, Kundapur TP), Pravin Kumar Shetty (vice president, Kundapur TP), Joythi Poojary (Kundapur, TP member), Thimmappa, Chandrashekar Shetty, Naveenchandra Shetty and KM Udupa and others were present.