KDP meeting, Udupi, Vented dams and sand extraction dominate

KDP meeting, Udupi, Vented dams and sand extraction dominate

Mangalore Today News Network

udupi, Nov 08, 2016: Strong issues of vented dams and sand extraction dominated the proceedings of the Karnataka Development Programme (KDP) review meeting here on Nov 7, Monday, it has come to light.

Gopal Poojary, Byndoor MLA, said that the staff of the Minor Irrigation Department had failed to put wooden planks against vented dams to prevent the backward movement of salt water from the sea last year. With this, instead of protecting the area from salt water, these dams became store houses of saline water, especially in the Kambadakone region.

“The departmental personnel are slow to react, the responsibility of putting wooden planks against these dams should be given to the gram panchayats or the people living close to them,” he said.

The officer of the Minor Irrigation Department informed the meeting that there were 270 vented dams under his department in the district. The meeting was informed that there were about 540 vented dams under the Panchayat Raj Engineering Department.

Pramod Madhwaraj, Minister of State for Fisheries, Youth Services and Sports, directed the chief executive officer of the zilla panchayat to collect information from the departments on putting planks against vented dams on a daily basis and cross check it with panchayat development officers.

On the issue of rural roads, Minister Madhwaraj said that 486-km long road in rural areas of the district could not be upgraded due to the rules that such roads should be nine-metres wide.

The roads in rural areas of the district were narrow. Hence, it would be better if these rules were relaxed and the required width was brought down to five metres, he said.

Chandrashekhar, Executive Engineer, Public Works Department, informed the meeting that a proposal had been submitted to the government to relax rules to upgrade rural roads.

To another query, Mr. Chandrashekhar said that the issue of sand shortage had been addressed. The department had a stock of 125 truck loads of sand with it. But it had received orders for 75 truckloads.

Sand was being sold for Rs. 960 per cubic meter. A truck load of sand was available at Rs. 5,760 with Assistant Executive Engineers of Kundapur and Karkala, he said.

Minister Madhwaraj said that the district in-charge Ministers of three coastal districts had been included in the Cabinet sub-committee under Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister T.B. Jayachandra to look into the needs of sand in the region. Ministers from the coastal districts had sought manual sand extraction by traditional san d extractors instead of mechanical extraction as done in other parts of the State.