Construction activities taken up by the Rashtrakavi Kuvempu Trust at Kuppali in Tirthahalli taluk of Shivamogga — the birth place of Rashtrakavi Kuvempu — have faced resistance by environmentalists and admirers of the late poet.
The Trust, set up by the State government, looks after the Kuvempu memorial Kavishaila, Kavimane, Tejaswi memorial and a museum at Kuppali. Recently, it began constructing a building for a canteen and toilets near the Poornachandra Tejaswi memorial to facilitate visitors. Several trees were cut down to make way for the structure. This has displeased environmentalists and admirers of Kuvempu, who argue that the building undermines the purpose for which the Trust was formed. The construction should not have taken place in the Kuvempu Memorial Bio-Park area, they say.
Appeal to Trust
A few readers of Kuvempu have written to the Trust raising objections to the construction. “Both Kuvempu and his son Tejaswi opposed disturbing the greenery in Kuppali. They were against constructing buildings. However, the Trust has ignored its basic objectives by taking up construction activities,” said Narasimhamurthy Halehatti, an assistant professor of Kannada at a college in Bengaluru and one of the signatories of the letter.
When The Hindu contacted Kadidal Prakash, secretary of the trust, he said the trust had taken up construction of a canteen and a few toilets considering the crowd visiting the place in recent years.
Following opposition to concrete structures on the premises, the trust constituted a committee for suitable suggestions. The committee included K. Chidananda Gowda, former VC of Kuvempu University and son-in-law of Kuvempu, M.C. Narendra of Bengaluru, who was one of those who had raised this issue, B.P. Veerabhadrappa, Vice-Chancellor of Kuvempu University, and a Superintendent Engineer of the Public Works Department.
“The committee suggested dropping the construction of canteen and stressed the need for toilets. We have decided to follow the committee’s recommendation. The construction of toilets is going on”, said Mr. Kadidal Prakash.
Explaining the need for the toilets, Mr. Prakash said that in the months of November and December 2022, thousands of schoolchildren will visit the place as part of school trips. “We had difficulty managing the crowd. We were forced to send back a few buses in December, unable to manage the numbers. The underground pits were overflowing too, prompting the locals to protest. The Health Department also served us notices, citing that such a situation would affect the health of the local people. The Trust had to address this issue,” he said. The Trust has been protecting the forestland in the locality, he added.
The State government had announced ₹1 crore for the trust. Of that, ₹50 lakh had been released. “We are using the funds for constructing an audio-visual hall for the benefit of schoolchildren visiting the place and a few other basic necessities”, he said.
