'Take up work on new Gurpura bridge immediately'

MLC Ivan D’Souza has cautioned the government that he and his supporters will take out a padayatra from Mangaluru to Moodbidri, if the authorities fail to take up the Gurpura bridge works immediately.

The old Gurpura bridge is crying for attention. The state government has already released Rs 38 crore for the purpose, he told reporters here on Monday.

“The office of the NHAI project director, who in charge of carrying out the four-laning of the road from Kulshekar to Karkala via Moodbidri, is situated in Shivamogga. The office should be shifted to Mangaluru immediately,” he demanded.

He added that the Congress district unit would stage a protest at Pumpwell Circle in Mangaluru on August 1 against the pathetic condition of the highway. Until the roadworks are completed, the toll collection on the stretch must cease, he demanded.

The MLC came down heavily on the Central government for the inordinate delay in completion of the National Highway 66 four-laning work from Talapady to Kundapur.

He held Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel and Udupi-Chikkamagaluru MP Shobha Karandlaje directly responsible for the delay in the completion of the four-laning of the NH 66. “The MPs have failed to raise the issue in the Parliament and bringing it to the notice of the Central government on delay in the work,” he said.

He urged the government to conduct a probe into the quality of work taken as a part of four-laning of the NH 66. The road and service roads are constructed unscientifically, he said.

Reacting to the suspicious death of Hazel Jyotsna Mathias (a nurse from Shirva, Udupi) in Saudi Arabia on July 21, the MLC said that Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy had written to the Indian Embassy at Jeddah and to the External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, urging them to take measures to bring back the body home at the earliest.

“In addition, the chief minister had also asked the Indian Embassy to urge the government in Saudi Arabia to conduct a probe into the suspicious death of the nurse Hazel. It is said that she had committed suicide. However, there were no reasons for her to commit suicide,” he claimed.

The NRI Forum member secretary will visit the family members on Tuesday. The issue of suspicious deaths of Indians in Saudi Arabia should be discussed in the Parliament, he said.

On the issue of a separate North Karnataka state, the MLC said that it was BJP’s political gimmick ahead of Lok Sabha elections in 2019. “The state government has not discriminated the North Karnataka districts in the allocation of funds. The BJP leaders are responsible for the demand of separate statehood. The Congress government in the state had accorded special status to Hyderabad Karnataka under Article 371(J),” he pointed out.

“The BJP in the state is not able to digest the welfare programmes of the coalition government in Karnataka. Hence, they are instigating people emotionally on the demand for a separate state,” he alleged.