Police to issue show-cause notice to KUIDFC for endangering lives

Police to issue show-cause notice to KUIDFC for endangering lives

Manglore Today News Network

Mangaluru, Dec 19, 2019:  Assistant Commissioner of Police (Traffic) M. Manjunatha Shetty on Wednesday directed the Traffic East Police to issue notice to Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation (KUIDFC) and its contractors to explain why action should not be initiated against them for endangering lives.

 

Mr. Shetty issued the direction to Traffic Police Inspector Gopalakrishna Bhat during his visit to Mulihithlu Junction near Mangaladevi Temple on the busy Bolara-Jeppu Market Road, following complaints from the public about haphazard digging of the road to lay underground sewage pipeline. The KUIDFC has been executing the UGD line for nearly a year at the location under Jalasiri, the Karnataka Integrated Urban Water Management Investment Programme.

Residents of the area, having failed to get any response from Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) for their perennial woes, complained to the police about the traffic problems at the busy junction. They said that not only was the dug-up area left unprotected, but roads in the vicinity had been left with potholes and craters for a long time.

During his visit, Mr. Shetty said that neither the contractor nor the KUIDFC had obtained permission from the traffic police to execute the work. As such, a notice should immediately be issued to them for endangering public life, he said.

Meanwhile, MCC councillors Revathi Shetty (Hoige Bazar) and P. Bhanumathi (Bolara) too arrived at the spot and narrated their experience with the project. They said they were being flooded with complaints from residents about the inordinate delays in completion of the work even as Ms. Shetty said a car had toppled in Bolara recently owing to the half-completed work.

As representatives of the contractor arrived at the spot, Mr. Shetty asked them to immediately install safetysigns and barricades around the work-site, failing which they would be booked for endangering lives. Promising to do it, the representatives said the dug-up portion would be relaid by Thursday.

While district in-charge secretary V. Ponnuraj had, on Tuesday, castigated agencies for haphazard execution of UGD works in Mangaluru, the KUIDFC itself had declared in its Environment Examination Document that there would be no open trenches at the end of a day’s work.

Courtesy:The Hindu