Mangaluru: About 124 students of the upgraded Government Secondary School (upgraded from a Higher Primary School in 2010) in Naravi, Belthangady taluk in the district, which is a Naxal-infested area, should be learning lessons in spacious classrooms this year.

But they have been forced to study in the classrooms meant for class 7 and 8 for some more months as the construction of the new block for the school is yet to commence.

This is the same situation in 19 other Government Secondary Schools where work related to the building of additional classrooms and improvement of the basic infrastructure, proposed under the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shikshana Abhiyan, are yet to be taken up. None of the 65 works taken up under the scheme, which were allotted to K.B.R. Infratech in Bengaluru, have been completed and they were scheduled to be completed in August 2015.

Concerns were expressed over the tardy progress in the construction work during a district review meeting held on Tuesday. “Inordinate delay in execution of the work cannot be accepted. This needs to be reviewed at the State-level and the contractor needs to be blacklisted,” said Mangaluru South MLA J.R. Lobo.

District in-charge Minister B. Ramanath Rai said that this delay was also seen in other parts of the State.

Mr. Rai said that the problem here had been the centralised way of calling global tenders and allotting work to firms based far away. “This firm is based in Hyderabad. There is no mechanism in place to keep a watch on the progress work,” he said.

A zilla panchayat member expressed displeasure that money was just being released from Bengaluru without seeing any physical progress in the work.

Deputy Commissioner A.B. Ibrahim said the problem was also due to allotment of works by the main contractor to sub-contractors, who were not accountable and added that similar problems were also noticed in infrastructure improvement works taken up under the Chief Minister’s Nagarothana scheme where allotment of works was done in a centralised way.

Mangaluru: Finally, the district sand incharge committee has permission for snad mining for use within the district.
The committee met on Thursday July 23 and took up the complaints by public against sand mining and the problems created by banning the sand transportation. Considering the fact that many building works and other important constrcution have been halted due to lack of sand, the committee gave permission for sand mining till August 31. The meeting was presided over by DC A.B Ibrahim. But the committee has strictly banned the interstate transportation of sand.

The committee has also ordered that the sand should be lifted manually. No mining on holidays. On working days the sand can be lifted from 9am to 5pm. Only 10 permits can be given for every acre, it is decided in the meeting.

Bantwal: Mangaluru DC, A B Ibrahim visits the areas in Bantwal that are affected by landslide on Wednesday morning. He also visited the houses here that are damaged by the landslide. He ordered the PDO to establish temporary shelters for the affected people and also said to open Ganji centers in Sujir government school. But people refused to stay in Ganji centers and said they will go to their relatives’ places.

 Tahsildar Purandar  Hegde, TP officer Cyprian Miranda, Tax officer Naryan Poojari, VA Pradeep, Narendrababu, Engineer Ravichandra and others  were present.

Again landslide:

At 11 o clock on Tuesday night again landslide happened in the area due to heavy rain.

Mangaluru: The Dakshina Kannada district administration will take a call on allowing sand extraction for local use from rivers in the coastal regulation zone (CRZ) by the month-end.

Before taking the decision, the administration will seek the opinion of experts in marine life, ecology as well as the people. People may send in their objections, if any, to the Deputy Commissioner’s office by July 20.

Chairing a meeting here on Friday, Deputy Commissioner A.B. Ibrahim said the decision to ban sand extraction for three months from June to August from CRZ area was taken after directions from the Union government. This is to facilitate fish breeding that would take in large scale during the monsoon.

Representatives of those engaged in sand extraction pleaded the administration to relax the ban partially, to allow only manual extraction and limit the supply within the district.

Construction industry had come to a standstill because of the ban and thousands of workers depending on the industry had been hit, they said.

However, officials from Karnataka State Pollution Control Board and professors from College of Fisheries said that sand extraction during the monsoon would affect fish breeding. The National Green Tribunal’s directive to ban it during the monsoon was well-founded, the KSPCB official said.

Udupi district administration has decided to seek objections from the people to resume sand extraction from July 15.

Civil Contractors Association in the district had held a protest demonstration here on Friday urging the administration to make sand available for construction activities. It had alleged that sand was being illegally transported to Kerala.

‘Time given’

Responding to the association’s charges, Mr. Ibrahim said the administration had given sufficient time for the contractors to stock sand at construction sites. They had about 25 days to pile up the stocks. Contractors cannot blame the administration for their fault, he said.

Additional Deputy Commissioner Sadashiva Prabhu, Assistant Commissioner R. Ashok, Deputy Director of Mines and Geology Department Ramappa, and KSPCB officer Rajashekar Puranik were present.

Karkala: Udupi DC Dr.Vishal visited various places in Karkala to review the development and pros and cons of the villages.

He inspected development work of Karkala Banglegudde junction circle construction work, Arunodaya school site, uncertain Kabettu bridge work, Miyyaru Morarji Desai hostel, PU hostel necessary construction work etc.

He also visited Anti Naxal camp and various other development work in and around Karkala. He gave instructions to officers of PWD about the construction works.

Tahsildar Raghavendra, Purasabha chief Rayappa, President Rahamat S Shekh, member Mahammad Sharif, PWD engineer, Purasabha engineer, IT officers and village accountant were present.

Mangaluru: Deputy Commissioner of Dakshina Kannada A.B. Ibrahim has banned movement of all sand transporting vehicles on the narrow Charmadi Ghat on the B.C. Road-Chikkamagaluru National Highway with immediate effect.

In a notification issued on Saturday he said that the ban would be in force till midnight of June 8.

It said that after the Shiradi Ghat on the Mangaluru-Bengaluru National Highway was closed for traffic for upgrading, traffic on the Charmadi Ghat towards Bengaluru and other areas has increased. Movement of many sand transporting vehicles has affected the smooth flow of traffic.

As it is the holiday season for schools and colleges, the movement of tourist vehicles has increased. In a recent meeting of the Karnataka Development Programme Review Committee, elected representatives objected to the movement of many sand-transporting vehicles on the Charmadi Ghat. They have alleged that the sand-transporting vehicles had caused accidents and had become responsible for some deaths.

Stating reasons for the ban, the release said that if vehicles were grounded due to technical faults at the deep curves, it often resulted in traffic jams. In addition, continuous flow of sand-transporting vehicles might damage the roads.

At a press conference here on Monday, Mr. Ibrahim said that he would review his ban order after June 8.

Mangaluru: Electronic voting machines (EVM) will not be used for Gram Panchayat elections scheduled in Dakshina Kannada on May 29, according to A.B. Ibrahim, Deputy Commissioner.

Addressing presspersons here on Thursday he said that due to multi-preferential voting, ballot papers would be used.

He said that model code of conduct which would come into effect from May 10 would not apply to the jurisdiction of urban local bodies, including Mangaluru City Corporation, city municipalities and town panchayats. It is applicable to the jurisdiction of all Gram Panchayats.

The code of conduct would not apply for organising cultural programmes, religious programmes and other functions such as marriages, birthdays. But the same programmes should not be used as an occasion for canvassing.

The notification for the elections, which would be apolitical, would be issued on May 11. The last date to submit applications is May 18. They would be scrutinised on May 19 and the last date for withdrawing nominations would be May 21. The elections would be conducted from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. The counting would take place on June 5.

Moodabidre: Deputy Commissioner of Dakshina Kannada A.B Ibrahim paid an unexpected visit to Moodabidre purasabha on Wednesday May 6 and inspected the files and expressed his anger over the working style of the purasabha.

He questioned the chief officer about the pending water bills, not imposing minimum tax on pending bills and about the missing documents in the computer about old pending bills.

On this occasion DC ordered the officers to collect the water bill properly and reduce the expenditure and concentrate on bringing some income to the purasabha.

DC took a task on engineer as he found that there were no proper documents about the building tax. There were no details about the construction works that were done in 2014-15.