Mangaluru: The highway widening and upgrading works between Addahole and B C Road will restart within 15 days as some of the technical reasons have been rectified already”, informed MP Nalin Kumar Kateel on Tuesday, January 15.
Addressing the reporters, Nalin clarified that besides some of the technical reasons, the state government did not acquire 41 hectares of forest land in Gundya and 6 km land in Kalladka to facilitate the highway widening. This forced the contractors to stop the work. As the meeting has been convened in this regard already and most of the problems have been rectified now, the work will restart within 15 days”, he said.
Nalin termed Congress’s padayatra in this regard is just a physical exercise. “As the state government delayed the land acquisition for highway widening, the work was stalled and there was no other reason for stopping the work. There is no change in the contract company and the `L & T’ company only would continue the work”, he clarified.
‘Procedure on merging the banks cannot be withdrawn’
Nalin informed that the decision of merging the banks was taken during the UPA regime and the process was continued thereafter. “The proposal of merging banks comes to the finance committee and Veerappa Moily is its chairman. Why Moily did not oppose the merging proposal when it came to his notice? Though it is not possible to withdraw the decision of merging Vijaya Bank with Bank of Baroda, BJP MPs and Ministers including Shobha Karandlaje, D V Sadananda Gowda among others have already approached Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and requested him to retain the name of Vijaya Bank after merger “, he informed.
Nalin also informed that a grand programme on the second phase of identifying the beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Ujwala Yojana will be held at Narayana Guru Circle in B C Road on January 25 which will be inaugurated by Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
‘Thokkottu, Pumpwell flyovers will be completed by Feb’
Meanwhile, Nalin Kumar informed that the flyover work at Pumpwell and Thokkottu will be completed by the end of February and Union Minister for Road, Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari will inaugurate it. Meanwhile, Gadkari will lay the foundation stone for the fishing jetty at Kulai and National Highway (NH 169) four laning work between Kulashekar-Moodbidri-Karkala on the same occasion, Nalin informed.
