Nanjangud: The concrete works of R.P. Road (Rashtrapathi Road) in the heart of the town is going on at a snail’s pace.

The concrete works started one-and-a-half-years ago when Siddharamaiah was the Chief Minister and Dr. H.C. Mahadevappa was the PWD Minister.

Dr. H.C. Mahadevappa with an eye on fielding his son Sunil Bose from Nanjangud (SC) constituency in the by-poll that ensued following the resignation of V. Sreenivasa Prasad, had got released crores of rupees for the development of the constituency.

The R.P. Road work was one of the many projects taken up then. But Dr. Mahadevappa failed to get the Congress ticket for his son and eventually Kalale Keshavamurthy, who defected from the JD(S), got the Congress ticket and even won the seat.

As he failed to get the Congress ticket for his son, Dr. Mahadevappa seemed to have lost interest in development works and even the contractor who had bagged the tender stopped the works midway.

Later, B. Harshavardhan of the BJP won from Nanjangud in the May 2018 Assembly polls and Kalale Keshavamurthy of the Congress lost. After some days, the contractor, citing replacement of old water lines along the road, demanded Rs.1.35 crore more for installation of new pipelines.

Even as the blame-game between the contractor and officials went on, the traders doing business on R.P. Road staged a massive demonstration and threatened to call a Nanjangud bandh.

Thereafter, MP R. Dhurvanarayan and MLA Harshvardhan held talks with the PWD Minister and the Chief Engineer in a bid to remove the hurdles for the completion of the works.

Following the efforts of the MP and the MLA, works resumed. But the slow pace of the works has annoyed the traders, public and all others alike, with dust frequently emanating from the road.

Amidst all these short-comings, there are complaints of poor curing and apathy of officials, who have failed in closely monitoring the works on a regular basis. With works incomplete, the nearby residents are put to a lot of hardship, especially when it rains. The indifference of CMC Members and officials have only compounded the problem, with people left to suffer.

It is time for the officials and the people representatives to wake up at least now and see that the concretisation of the all important road is completed as early as possible and thus provide relief to the people of this temple town.

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