Dressed as a devil, Jerald Towers, a member of the Nagarika Hita Vedike, Lower Bendore, wandered on the newly laid concrete road at Mallikatta on Tuesday.
Standing on the road divider, he showed the drivers of two-wheelers, cars, jeeps, lorries and buses the narrow stretch in between Vas Bakery and Mallikatta Junction. He showed them the road not having drains and footpaths. It was protest with a difference against the authorities designing and building the roads unscientifically.
Mr. Towers acted as he was a “victim” of a road accident in the city after Mangaluru City Corporation began upgrading many tar roads as concrete roads without footpaths and drains. He alleged that the corporation was upgrading the roads unscientifically. Mr. Towers alleged that though the corporation had claimed that it had built four-lane roads, the width of both sides of many roads were not uniform. Even road dividers have not been built scientifically. In some roads, road dividers have been built in such places where one side of the road was wide while another side was narrow. In such places road dividers posed a problem to motorists who hit the dividers. A case in point was the narrow road in front of a diagnostic centre between Vas Bakery and Mallikatta Junction.
Mr. Towers claimed that road accidents in the city have claimed at least 50 lives in the past five years. All of them were victims because of unscientific junctions, including the one at Nanthoor on the NH66, and unscientifically laid roads.
He said that there was no need to upgrade certain tar roads as concrete roads. But the corporation blindly without assessing the need for it was going for upgrading.
Mr. Towers alleged that even the size of road dividers were not uniform in the city though some roads were uniform in width.
He alleged that the road safety week being observed by the government every year was just a drama.
Mr. Towers questioned why should the government spent money for organising such week without taking measures to avoid accidents on the roads.
