BELAGAVI: After shifting the Belagavi division office of Karnataka State Highways Improvement Project (
KSHIP) to Hasan recently, the state government has kicked-up a row by cancelling
Karnataka Ayush Drugs Manufacturing Society (
KADMS) from Belagavi and merging it with its Bengaluru unit.
The Siddaramaiah-led government had announced the setting up of KADMS at Vaccine Depot area here in the 2017-18 budget and had allocated Rs 5 crore for it. It had also released an initial grant of Rs 2.5 crore. However, the current coalition government has cancelled the project citing that the project was not approved in the cabinet.
The decision cancelling KADMA’s Belagavi unit was taken at a meeting of general secretary and deputy secretary of health and family welfare department and director of Ayush department on July 24.
Condemning the decision, Belagavi (South) MLA
Abhay Patil said if similar step-motherly attitude towards North Karnataka continues, the government would find it tough to hold the winter assembly session in Belagavi.
Patil said, “Chief minister H D Kumaraswamy issued a statement announcing Belagavi as the second capital of the state. He also said some administrative offices would be shifted to Suvarna Vidhana Soudha (SVS). But the fact is he is doing the opposite. What does cancelling this project after funds were released in the budget indicate?”
The British established three Vaccine Institutes in the country in 1904 to fight smallpox that killed millions of people for centuries and one of the them was set up in Belagavi.
A vaccine for smallpox was manufactured here up to 1977 till the country won battle against the fatal disease. Now this 156-acre green lung place in the heart of the city is under the health and family welfare department.
