Kota Srinivas Poojary, Minister for Ports and Muzrai, said on Tuesday that a proposal had been submitted to the State Government to widen the Agumbe ghat road which connected Udupi with Shimoga at a cost of Rs. 34.2 crore.
He told presspersons after the tri-monthly district-level Karnataka Development Programme (KDP) meeting here that Rs. 21 crore was required to widen the roads in the ghat section coming under the Udupi district while Rs. 11 crore was needed to widen the roads in the ghats falling under the limits of Shimoga district.
But the widening of this road would require acquisition of forestland. Hence the Department of Public Works and the Department of Forests had been given the joint responsibility to study the issue of land acquisition.
The Agumbe ghat road, which has 14 hairpin bends or curves, allowed the movement of light vehicles at present. The widening of the road would facilitate the movement of heavy vehicles between Udupi and Shimoga.
The Department of Animal Husbandry would begin animal census work from September 19. Since there was staff shortage in the department, the personnel from other departments would be deployed for the work. As many as 3,650 calves in the district would be vaccinated for foot-and-mouth disease.
The district had been given a target of providing 10,000 houses under the Basava Indira Vasati Yojane. Nearly 2,000 homes had been built under the Yojane. The administration had identified 126.88 acres of land for providing sites in rural areas. As many as 228 sites had been distributed.
It had been decided to provide land to the poor people in areas close to where they were living. A committee comprising the tahsildars, Executive Officers of taluk panchayats, and Assistant Commissioner had been formed for this purpose and it would give its report in a month, Mr. Poojary said.
The Government had released Rs. 5.23 crore for construction of roads under the Chief Minister’s Rural Road Development Scheme. About Rs. 6.15 crore had been released for the construction of rural roads under the Third Finance Commission scheme.
The Government had released Rs. 34.2 crore for rural drinking water supply to the district, he added.
Mr. Poojary said he had directed officials to provide LPG gas connections to 14 anganwadis in Kundapur taluk, which did not have them. The felling of trees had disrupted power connection to 700 families living in villages in Jadkal-Mudur area in Kundapur taluk. Power supply to these villages would be restored in 10 days.
The loss due to rains in the district had been scaled down from Rs. 20 crore to Rs. 12 crore. Nearly 148 km of roads belonging to the Fisheries Department would be repaired at a cost of Rs. 1.57 crore. As many as 260 houses would be provided to fishermen in the district, Mr. Poojary said.
MLAs Raghupati Bhat and Lakshminarayana, Deputy Commissioner M.T. Reju, Superintendent of Police M.B. Boralingaiah, and Chief Executive Officer of Zilla Panchayat Prabhakar Sharma were present.
