CHARMADI:
Charmadi Ghat may have gotten blocked for a brief while on Saturday. However, the entire 25km stretch, right from
Charmadi village in Belthangady of
Dakshina Kannada to Kottigehara in
Chikkamagaluru offered a hassle free ride throughout the day on Sunday.
Despite traffic from the other two ghats – Shiradi and Sanmpaje – having being concentrated on the Charmadi ghat, the relatively smooth flow of traffic was possible after the district administrations of Dakshina Kannada and Chikkamagaluru banned plying of
heavy commercial vehicles on the ghat.
However, the biggest issue marring the entire ghat was the hundreds of deep craters. Some of these craters were deep enough to bring down vehicles travelling at over 45kmph down to less than 10kmph.
'Who is our boss?’
A handful of workers were seen dumping mud on some of the craters to better the situation. They said they had been tasked with clearing landslides, uprooted trees and clearing potholes since the last two months. While these workers seemed to be efficient enough in clearing trees and landslides, nothing concrete has been done in the last 60 days to fill the deadly potholes. Departmental apathy seemed to be the reason behind this. “We are a group of villagers who have been tasked with filling potholes. However, we do not know who our boss is. We haven’t seen him yet,” a worker said, apparently hinting that the supervising engineer hadn’t kept a count of the work undertaken.
Abatement of rains also helped facilitate a smooth traffic movement throughout the day. However,
Subrahmanya Bhat, priest at the popular Sri Manjunatha Swami Sri Annappaswami Sannidhi on the Ghat, told TOI that rains had resumed in the evening and with the Dakshina Kannada district administration letting heavy commercial vehicles since evening, probabilities of traffic bottlenecks couldn’t be ruled out.
