After a meeting to resolve the controversy over renaming Light House Hill Road failed to find an amicable solution, the district administration on Friday constituted a four-member committee to examine the issue.
No time-frame was given to the committee that would comprise Mangalore University Registrar and Head of the Department, History; Additional Deputy Commissioner and Mangaluru City Corporation Commissioner, by Deputy Commissioner K.G. Jagadeesha.
The Deputy Commissioner took the decision after district in-charge Minister B. Ramanath Rai, who chaired the meeting, passed on the responsibility to him.
MLA questioned
Initiating the discussion, Mulki Karunakara Shetty from Vijaya Bank Workers and Officers Union asked Mangaluru South MLA J.R. Lobo why he wrote to the government stating that the renaming was not brought to public notice.
The corporation and the government had followed due process to rename road, including inviting objections from the public. The road was not specifically asked for renaming, he said.
Mr. Shetty also noted that no law and order problem would have occurred if the road was renamed on July 2; it was St. Aloysius College authorities who mobilised students against the renaming.
He also said the union felt that it was unnecessary to discuss with the college authorities to “settle the issue” as suggested by the MLA, as the government order was clear. The union is not open for any other solution, he said.
Since 1976
College Registrar A M. Narahari said that the corporation should have carefully examined the issue before recommending renaming of the road.
He said that the road was renamed St. Aloysius College Road in 1976 by the then Mangalore Municipal Council when Late Blasius M. D’Souza was the president.
He displayed a college magazine of those years and said that the book is not an afterthought.
Mr. Sunder Ram Shetty is also an alumnus of the college and the college is proud of him.
However, the road once renamed cannot again be renamed again, he argued.
Social activist G. Hanumanth Kamath wondered if the road was named by the college and asked why its address at the entrance still says Light House Hill Road. St. Aloysius College itself is a landmark and it does not need a road to be named after it for recognition.
On the other hand, Vokkaligara Yane Gowdara Seva Sangha demanded that the road be renamed Bavuta Gudda Road to remember the 1837 freedom struggle while the former Mayor K. Ashraf demanded that it be renamed as Idgah Road.