Tussle between police dept, HDMC delays HD-Trac work

Hubballi: A tussle between the city police and Hubballi-Dharwad Municipal Corporation (HDMC) has taken a toll on development of traffic infrastructure in the twin cities.
The police department has not been able to utilize Rs 5 crore grant released by the state government when Siddaramaiah was the chief minister to improve traffic infrastructure under Hubballi-Dharwad Trac project due to a minor argument between the HDMC and police commissionerate.
In 2015, the then Congress government had released Rs 5 crore to the police commissionerate. However, HDMC was tasked with the responsibility of taking up development works by inviting tenders. HDMC has been asking the commissionerate to handover the list of works to be taken up under the project but the former has not done it as it wanted to take up work on its own.
The deputy commissioner had intervened in this matter twice and asked both HDMC and the police to arrive at a consensus but to no avail.
The issue of non-utilization of the funds surfaced during a recent meeting in which HDMC commissioner Suresh Itnal and deputy commissioner of police (crime and traffic) Shivakumar Gunare assured district minister Jagdish Shettar that they would utilise the funds by solving all pending issues.
DCP Gunare told TOI that the police commissioner is the head of the HD Trac Committee and that there was a minor argument about who should invite tender for the work. “HDMC and the commissionerate will hold a meeting soon to decide on the issue,” he said.
Gunare added that police have prepared a list of works to be done under the project including improvement of major traffic junctions and installing signboards and cameras.