Officials of the Hubballi-Dharwad bus rapid transit system (BRTS) and other government agencies were taken to task by Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Jagadish Shettar and Pralhad Joshi, MP, during a review meeting here on Monday.
Mr. Shettar and Mr. Joshi did not hide their displeasure over the slow execution of the project and sought to know what action had been taken against officials and companies who had failed to speed up the work.
During their visit to the work sites from Hosur Circle to Navanagar, the leaders found that the roads had turned non-motorable on certain stretches and despite warnings, no action had been taken. There had been accidents on these roads resulting in casualties and the residents had staged protests on a few occasions.
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They were angry against the company which had bagged the contract for building bus shelters and had suddenly disappeared. The representative of the company was unable to give any justifiable clarification for the suspension of work and said he was not aware that it was their responsibility to make the road motorable.
Hubballi-Dharwad BRTS managing director M.G. Hiremath clarified that they had served a notice to the company. He said that he had also sought the advice of the consultant appointed for the project on the extent of penalty to be levied.
Mr. Shettar directed Mr. Hiremath to get the damaged roads asphalted within a day and asked him to specify the date of completion of the project. Complaints about the consultant being the reason for the delay were also raised.
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Meanwhile, BRTS officials clarified that there was no issue about coordination as a 12-member group had been created to address it. Mr. Hiremath also promised to initiate steps to get the works completed at the earliest.
The meeting ended with Mr. Hiremath mentioning that November 2017 would be the revised deadline. Mr. Shettar and Mr. Joshi said that they would review the progress of works after some time.