Deputy Speaker of the Assembly and MLA of Mangalore South N. Yogish Bhat said here on Thursday that Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar has sanctioned a special grant of Rs. 8.5 crore for the development of interior roads in Mangalore South.
Addressing presspersons at Mangalore City Corporation Mr. Bhat said of the sanctioned amount Rs. 3.62 crore had been released.
The fund would be used for developing interior roads that were in a bad condition in areas such as Jeppinamogaru and Bajal.
Mr. Bhat said the government had given clearance for building a 3-D planetarium at Pilikula at a cost of Rs. 24 crore. It would be named after Swami Vivekananda. Bids would have to be invited for its construction.
The MLA said the government had prepared a draft note for making a State-level policy for making transferable development rights (TDR) attractive for buyers. So that people voluntarily came forward to part with their land required for development works such as road widening. It would be placed before the Assembly, in the next session, for discussion.
Mr. Bhat said the government had started the process of drafting a policy to encourage large builders in the State to build houses for economically-weaker sections of society as their corporate social responsibility.
SMS complaints
Later, Mr. Bhat launched a dedicated telephone number of Mangalore City Corporation for addressing grievances such as non-collection of solid waste from the doorsteps of people. The number is 8123666266. People could send their complaints to this number from their cell phones using the short message service (SMS).
He said when a person sent a message to the number, it got registered in the control room of the civic body and an acknowledgement was sent with the complaint number and the name and cellphone number of the field officer responsible for addressing the problem. In their complaints people should specify their ward number and roads from where the solid waste had not been collected. If they failed to mention these details, they would get a message seeking these details.
After a message got registered in the control room, it got forwarded to the field officer concerned. The complaints would be addressed within a maximum of 72 hours of receiving them.
