NHJC Sastan calls for Protest on Feb 11 against toll collection
Udupi: The National Highway Jagrathi Committee Sastan has given a call for Protest on Saturday February 11 against the toll collection before fulfilling the demands of the Committee. The decision has been taken after the emergency meeting held at Shivakripa Auditorium Sastan on February 9.
Speaking on the occasion Prathap Shetty president of the Committee said that during the meeting held at Deputy commissioner’s office on February 4 chaired by the District minister it was decided to put on hold collecting toll at two plazas on the four-lane National Highway 66 between Surathkal to Kundapur for four days.
The minister ordered the district administration and engineers of the PWD and National Highway to conduct a joint inspection of the NH work from Surathkal to Kundapur. Engineers of the PWD and National Highway should submit the inspection report to the district administration in four days. If the company and NHAI have failed in completing 90 percent of the work, the district administration should write a letter to the Union minister Nithin Gadkari. Now five days have already passed but until now we have not received any information from the district administration about the joint inspection report.
In the recent developments, the district administration has decided to collect the toll from February 10 midnight. We had also demanded the NHAI authorities’ to exempt locals with KA -20 registration vehicles. The National Highway engineers have tried to negotiate the collection of toll for KA -20 registered vehicles. They are ready to give the discount for vehicles measuring less than 5 KM meters but we have rejected their proposal, we are asking for 100 percent exemption for locals with KA -20 registration vehicles.
The district administration has already issued permission to collect the toll from February 10 and also instructed the police department to give protection to the toll plaza in Hejamadi and Sastan. The district administration has totally neglected our demands. We will decide to hold a huge protest at the toll plaza on February 11 morning at 10 am. Many associations have extended their support for the protest. We will not allow them to collect the toll without meeting our main demands.
Zilla Panchayat Member Raghavendra Kanchan, Committee leaders Alwyn Andrade, Prashanth Shetty, Vittal Poojary, Moses Rodrigues and others were present.
