Hubballi: After much delay,
chief minister Kumaraswamy has finally appointed district ministers for various districts, including
RV Deshpande for
Dharwad.
This appointment has brought some relief to people of the district, mainly twin cities of Hubballi-Dharwad, who now hope that at least now officers involved in various projects will be held responsible if there is further delay in implementation.
In the absence of a district minister, many developmental works, including roads upgrade,
BRTS works,
24x7 water scheme and UGD works, have seen very slow progress.
Many officers have also failed to fix any deadline or accountability for staff involved in implementation of important projects. No review meetings were held to assess progress of projects.
The main challenge for the district minister is to restore roads of twin cities which have potholes and pose a threat to motorists. While the road between
Hubballi and Dharwad is one of the worst, many others in twin cities are in dire need of immediate repair.
Many organisations have protested to express their anger. But their demands have fallen on deaf ears. Residents of Byaridevarkoppa recently rolled on slushy roads in protest.
Civic activist Dr MC Sindhur said, “Officials have no fear as there’s no monitoring of their work. HDMC has completely collapsed and unable to handle civic issues. Many roads are unmotorable. Officials are passing the buck by blaming the rain. The district minister should immediately fix some responsibility and deadlines to restore the roads on priority.”
People said the district minister should spend more time here to improve infrastructure and hold review meetings frequently rather than visiting the district for namesake during weekends.
“The district minister should hold a review meeting with BRTS officials to speed up the project. BRTS officials have failed to complete the project within deadlines. They get a fresh deadline every six months to a year ever. There’s no sign of it being completed in the near future. KCCI offers to host a meeting of all organisations to take measures for improving infrastructure if the district minister agrees to preside over it,” said V P Lingangowder, president, Karnataka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Hubballi.
