Mangalore, Jul 26: Due to the concretisation of a 26-km stretch from Gundia (Dakshina Kannada) to Maranahalli (Hassan), the Shiradi Ghat road on the Mangalore-Bangalore stretch will remain closed for six months from December 1.
Announcing this at a district-level meeting on Shiradi Ghat development here on Friday, executive engineer C Nataraj said that the 26-kn stretch would be concretised at a cost of Rs 150 crore, which is expected to be completed by May 30.
Hence, the Shiradi Ghat stretch will be closed for vehicular movement until the work is completed.
Owing to this, Dakshina Kannada deputy commissioner A B Ibrahim directed the National Highways Engineering Department to conduct a feasibility study of five alternative routes from Mangalore to Bangalore during the temporary closure of Shiradi Ghat stretch.
Officials from the Public Works Department and Karnataka Road Development Corporation Ltd advised that alternative options apart from the Charmadi-Mudigere route and Mani-Sampaje-Madikeri route should be explored, since the two mentioned routes already exceeded their carrying capacity at present.
Mr Ibrahim directed the officials to submit the feasibility report by August 15.
Comments
It seems Shiradi Ghat road is the cash collection cow for contractors and officials. So often concreting, asphalting, new culverts construction, resurfacing and other repair works are undertaken on this 40 km stretch and almost every year after the monsoon, new huge potholes reappear. During last several years, we have never seen the whole stretch in even normal condition. Still crores of rupees are spent every year. Does all this money gets drained into Kumaradhara and Netravati rivers? Or somewhere else? Why NHAI is so inefficient on this matter? A road on which heavy oil & gas tankers run must be having specially prepared ballast bed which is missing here. These tankers often prove to be a big menace.
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