The issue of sand extraction and condition of Kundapur-Shiroor stretch of National Highway 66 figured in the general body meeting of Zilla Panchayat here on Thursday.
Raising the issue, Gopal Poojary, MLA, said the district administration should take steps to deal with the problem of sand extraction. There has been a scarcity of sand in the district for the last one and a half years. This should not be allowed to go on.
The matter has to be brought to the notice of the State government. The government should formulate a sand policy for the three coastal districts. There is no point in merely holding meetings here on the issue, he said.
Babu Shetty, ZP member, said since little or no sand is available in the district, it is being smuggled from Shivamogga district at a high price.
Intervening, Deputy Commissioner, Priyanka Mary Francis, said sand extraction has been permitted in 26 sand bars in the Coastal Regulation Zone areas in the district. Sand extraction in these bars will begin after monsoon.
But there was a stay order by the High Court on extraction of sand in non-CRZ areas. The extraction of sand in sand bars after monsoon would meet the immediate needs of sand in the district, she said.
Mr. Poojary said the contractor, IRB company, in order to widen the Kundapur-Shiroor stretch of NH 66 had made a mess of the process and this was illustrated by the landslip from a hillock at Othinene. Though he and the police had warned the company that there would be landslip, no steps were taken to prevent it. There was no need to cut the hillock straight.
The soil flowing down from the hillock during the monsoon had damaged the fields nearby. The company blamed the Forest Department for not giving permission for constructing roadside drain below the hillock. But the department claimed otherwise.
The company had not constructed roadside drains on the stretch. As a result, water was entering into houses by the side of road in some places. The company was doing widening work in patches for the last three years, creating problems on the entire stretch, he said.
Ms. Francis said the district administration had booked a case against the company and others for negligence with regard to the landslip. The company had been told to take all precautionary measures, she said.
Dinakar Babu, ZP president, Sheela Shetty, vice-president, were present.
