A ride on Mahagaon-Chincholi State Highway is a nightmare

Though the area has produced many political stalwarts, nothing much has come of it

Craters such as this near Navadagi village make it impossible for road users to travel on Mahagaon-Chincholi State Highway.

Chincholi has produced several stalwarts, including the two-time Chief Minister late Veerendra Patil, who was also a Union Minister for a long stint, and the former Ministers Devendrappa Ghalappa and Vaijnath Patil. But none of this political clout has helped as far as infrastructure for road communication is concerned.

Endowed with rich natural resources, Chincholi is the only taluk to have forest cover in the district; yet one has to endure a backbreaking experience while driving through the road which is filled with not just pot holes but also huge craters.

It becomes impossible to travel on the road during the rainy season when the stretch of around 50-km road (State Highway 32) from Mahagaon to Sulepet becomes treacherous with huge water puddles.

It was way back in 1990 when the single-lane State Highway connecting Chincholi with the district headquarters Gulbarga was laid, thanks to the initiative taken by late Veerendra Patil when he became the Chief Minister for the second time in 1989. Ironically, the road has not seen even the normal maintenance or repairs to fill pot holes which have developed into huge craters afterwards.

Although the work of the upgradation of this stretch, was taken up in 2012 at a cost of Rs. 24.65 crore, work on only 5 km has been completed and the contractor has the impossible task of completing the remaining work before September this year.

Another important road connecting Afzalpur town with the district headquarters, which was also in a very bad state for the past two decades, has been taken up for upgradation under the inter-state economically important road project funded by the Union government.

Road reconstruction

The State government has taken up reconstruction of the road from Gulbarga to Chowdapur covering a distance of 33 km under the World Bank-assisted K-SHIP II, and the remaining portion from Chowdapur to Karajgi in Afzalpur taluk, covering a distance of 46 km, would be taken up under the Centrally-assisted project for upgradation to the national highway standard.

The road from Karajgi to Hosur on the Maharashtra border covering a distance of 24 km would be taken up for upgradation under the State Highway development project simultaneously.