Not Pumpwell Bale, Now It’s Tollbooth Bale..? Tollbooth Protest by BJP Just a Nataka to Cover Up MP’s Failure
Not Pumpwell Bale, Now It’s Tollbooth Bale..? The recent Tollbooth Protest by BJP members is Just a Nataka to Cover Up MP Nalin Kumar Kateel’s Failure in completing the Kankanady Pumpwell Flyover, and his FAKE promises of Flyover inauguration dates
Mangaluru: When Congress held amock inauguration of the flyover on 1 January at 4 pm, the day MP Nalin Kumar Kateel had said that the flyover will be inaugurated on 1 January 2020, during the occasion MLC Ivan D’souza attributed the delay on MP Kateel and said an FIR should be filed against the NP for the delay, and he also said the BJP members were protesting against toll payment was just to cover up the MP’s failure on that long pending project which has taken nearly nine years to complete. The construction of flyover began in 2010.
Then BJP workers led by MLA Vedavyas Kamath and MLA Bharath Shetty ensured free passage for motorists plying on NH 66 at the Talapady toll plaza, and at Hejmady, Surathkal tollbooths, after a meeting held by MP Nalin Kumar Kateel to symbolically protest the delay in completing the components of four-lane work along NH-66. Even MP Kateel has said that he would personally stage dharna near the tollbooth, and this has gone viral, and even the whole issue has become a subject for trolls and meme creators once again- and the general public are enjoying them fully. And the new date promised for the inauguration of the flyover after MP Kateel consulted with the concessionaire Navayuga Udupi Tollway Pvt Ltd (NUTPL) is 31 January 2020- and in the meantime we’ll see many more trolls and meme creators on the new inauguration date.
And will the pumpwell flyover open on 31 January 2020 is very much doubtful by looking at the progress of the work- hardly you can see any workers at the construction site, other than a few. There is still lots of work pending on this flyover, and how can anyone promise to inaugurate this flyover on 31 January will be yet another fake promise, and will also be one more joke of New Year 2020? Even after so many promised dates of completion and inauguration of this Flyover, and while a new date of completion is set for 31 January 2020, the flyover presently remains a picture of deserted work-in-progress, and amidst the presence of construction debris, abandoned mechanized equipment, earth-movers and iron rods popping out of the unfinished structure, the project appears to be at a standstill.
And in order to divert the attention of the public about the incomplete of Flyover, MP Kateel and BJP workers are trying to pacify and please the motorists on the toll payment issue. Wow-nice gesture, looks like! Though Kateel had arranged a bank loan of Rs 56 crore to help complete the flyover at Pumpwell, NUTPL has failed to adhere to multiple deadlines for its completion. So now the symbolic protest is only to exert pressure on the Company to adhere to a deadline that it ahs given in writing to DC Sindhu Rupesh during a meeting recently and ensure that it meets the same without fail. Or may be this protest is just to cover up MP’s failure- God only can give us a answer?
BJP party workers even have warned the employees at the tollbooth not to collect any toll from the motorists, and if they did so, once again the protest will resume in a larger scale. It is learnt that Talapady toll plaza nets around Rs 7 lakh collection. In the meantime, even the Private bus operators in Dakshina Kannada have decided not to pay toll at the toll booths of NUTPL at Talapady and Hejmady, as a protest against NUTPL for failing to complete National Highway No 66 widening project between Talapady and Kundapur and to complete work on service roads.
Dilraj Alva, president, Dakshina Kannada Bus Operators Association, and Durga Prasad Hegde, vice-president, Canara Bus Operators Association speaking to Team Mangalorean said that people in general will join them in not paying toll at the two booths. Alva said that each bus will have to pay Rs 35,000 per month as fee at the Talapady booth. About 30 buses will have to pay them just to reach a bus stand a few metres away from the toll booth and return. And Nalin Kumar Kateel had backed the decision by motorists not to pay toll at these two tollbooths.
Sources reveal that when Ramesh Y., director, NUTPL, and Shishu Mohan, project director, NHAI Mangaluru Project Office, urged the MP to reconsider his stand as it would push the concessionaire into loss, MP Kateel did not agree with them to change his stand. Later, Kateel addressing media persons had said that a decision on merging the toll plaza at Surathkal with the one at Hejmady will be taken in a meeting with NHAI in New Delhi on January 6. Other issues relating to FasTAG and giving concession to daily service buses will also be discussed.
In the meantime, while the toll paying issue is going on in between the Netas and NUTPL, motorists and citizens will have keep their fingers crossed as to whether the Pumpwell flyover will REALLY OPEN on 31 January 2020- and for sure, we will be seeing quite a few trolls and meme creators on the new flyover open deadline. May be this time, instead of USA President Donald Trump inaugurating the Pumpwell Flyover, it could be the Queen of England- you never know, what trolls and meme creators will bring out on social media?
