Mangaluru: The St Aloysius College Road from Catholic Club till the Jyothi Ambedkar Circle will be renamed after the erstwhile Vijaya Bank’s popular chairman Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty in accordance with a notification issued by the state government, said MCC Mayor Divakar Pandeshwar during a general meeting of the Corporation. He also informed us that an event will be organised on September 23 to rename the road officially.
Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty played a vital role in the development of the Vijaya Bank (now Bank of Baroda) and was its chairman, honorary chairman and full-time chairman in the 1960s and ’70s.
The road, which houses the Light House, century-old St Aloysius Institutions, Idgah Masjid, Ladies Club and the erstwhile Vijaya Bank’s regional office, was supposed to be renamed in the month of 2017 May. The then ruling Congress leaders in the MCC had proposed this to the government, which issued a notification in this regard. But soon after the notification was issued, the management, students, and alumni of the St Aloysius Institutions took to the streets and demanded that the road’s name be retained as ‘St Aloysius College Road’, given the service rendered by the Institution in educating scores of students for over a century. Soon after, former MLA J R Lobo was successful in bringing a stay order to maintain the status quo on the matter.
After this, the Vijaya Bank’s Ex-Employees Association approached the High Court, which, on April 11, 2019, ruled that this is an administrative decision and the government has to re-look into the mater and take a decision. The government had then asked the MCC Commissioner to review the order and send his opinion on the matter.
The then MCC Commissioner Shanady Ajith Kumar had given his nod to rename the road, after which the government issued its earlier order and notified that the road be renamed as ‘Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty Road’.
During the meeting, senior BJP Corporator Sudheer Shetty Kannur suggested that the Mangalore Railway Junction and the approach road be renamed in the memory of the driving force behind the Konkan Railway project and former Defence Minister, Late George Fernandes. Senior Corporator Lancelot Pinto suggested that the Bejai New Road instead be renamed in George Fernandes’s memory and informed that his family members want a main road in the city to be named after him.
There was also a suggestion from Corporator Vinayaraj to reconstruct the recently unearthed 120-year-old well and name it ‘Appana Katte’. The Mayor gave his nod to maintain the well.
Answering a question from the Leader of the Opposition in the MCC Abdul Rauf regarding the measures taken against officials who supplied contaminated water during the lockdown, MCC Commissioner Akshy Shridhar said that the water that was supplied had a PH level of 6.3 against the normal of 6.5 to 7.5, but the health officials have confirmed that the water supplied was safe for drinking. Still, since there is a dereliction of duty, we have issued a show-cause notice to the concerned officials, he informed.
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