Yathindra Clears ₹350 Crore First-Phase Drains, Eyes Full ₹1,250 Crore Plan
Mangaluru: Urban Development Minister Yathindra Siddaramaiah told a Mangaluru City Corporation progress review on Thursday, 18 September, that underground drainage inside corporation limits remains in a wretched state.
A proposal of Rs. 1,250 crore has been filed to raise the system, the department has already cleared Rs. 350 crore for the first phase, and he expects the cabinet meeting scheduled on Friday to sanction release of that money.
He accorded on-the-spot approval for the opening Rs. 350 crore of works meant to ease the drains and said the file would go before the cabinet; once that body agrees, funds will be freed and construction can start quickly.
Demands under the Jalasiri 24-hour water scheme including Rs. 60 crore for Mangaluru and Rs. 160 crore together for Puttur and Kundapura, have also been sent to the cabinet, along with a request to loosen conditions so that money can be arranged, and he expects those items to pass as well.
He called it a shame that a Smart City corporation in a state that leads in software is still not fully digitized. He told officers to take firm steps to finish digitisation, to hear public complaints in full and to make completed civic works visible to residents. The direction followed former corporator Naveen D’Souza’s demand that corporation services go entirely digital.
The minister advised raising storage and other water arrangements to match availability and the population expected over the next twenty-five years, and he said solid-waste handling inside corporation limits must reach 100 percent and must be sized for the waste of the coming quarter-century.
MLC Ivan D’Souza pointed to delay on Jalasiri work and to hardship caused by scattered road cutting. Officers replied that 7.45 km remain of a 52.45 km main-pipe programme, 303 km remain of a 1,191 km distribution network, and 57,118 of 96,300 house tap connections are still pending, with completion promised by the end of March 2027.
Yathindra expressed dissatisfaction that only 35 percent of house-tap work had been done in six years, ordered the job finished inside the deadline already given so that supply can be organised, and cautioned that the subject must not appear at the next meeting.
Member of Parliament Captain Brijesh Chowta said the Central Market and other new markets had been built like malls and that senior citizens and the public cannot use multi-storey blocks. Ivan D’Souza, Naveen D’Souza and former corporator Lancelot Pinto added that several markets, though constructed years ago, stay incomplete, stay closed to public use and fail both citizens and traders.
The minister responded that every market built hereafter must suit street vendors and small and medium traders and must be friendly to the public and to older residents.
He also voiced unhappiness that seven lakh tonnes of legacy waste still lie at the Pachanady dumping yard, noted that visits to other civic bodies had shown him such a stock only in Mangaluru, and told officers to quicken its treatment, to guarantee 100 percent waste management on the Davanagere pattern, to motivate pourakarmikas with incentive pay and to make GPS fitting on collection vehicles compulsory.
MLAs Dr. Bharath Kumar Shetty, Kishore Kumar and P V Mohan, MUDA president Santosh Kumar Shetty, Karnataka State Seed and Organic Certification Agency chairperson Lavanya Ballal, Commissioner Rahul Ratnam Pandey and others attended. (eom)