Ullal: Residents of Kojapady in Harekala village who are greatly inconvenienced due to the plying of a single bus on the route, staged a Rasta Roko and blocked the movement of the bus for over an hour on Friday June 27 in order to pressurise the authorities to ensure that all six buses which operated on the route in the past, resumed their services. Panchayat President Mohandas Shetty has also warned that the villagers will resort to a severe protest if the bus services did not resume within the next three days.
As many as six buses operated on the Kojapady route since the past few years. But the bad state of the road had forced the bus operators to suspend the service to Kojapady. The road was later concretised after locals appealed to health minister UT Khader who also represents the constituency.
However, when buses excluding one, failed to turn up even then, the villages made several appeals to the Konaje police and transport officials. When everything went futile, a week ago, villagers intercepted the lone bus and had seen to it that the transport officers visited the spot. Though the officials assured to introduce bus services within a week, nothing happened.
Now, as a last resort the villagers staged another protest on Friday. The protest was withdrawn after Konaje SI Raghava S Padil who visited the spot assured to take steps to ensure that all six buses passed through Kojapady by Monday.
The villages point out that the stretch of road from Kojapady to Harekalapadavu measured five kms and that people had to rely on autorickshaws by paying as much as Rs 40 o Rs 50 . Even school children nearly 200 in number are greatly affected and many a time fail to reach school on time as they have to trek the entire distance in the absence of bus. There have been occasions when teachers themselves have brought the children home by autorickshaws, the villagers said.
