by Richie Lasrado
Resident Editor
Daijiworld.com
Mangalore

Pics Dayanand Kukkaje

June 8, 2006

Mangalore: A foreign visitor here the other day commented, "Why do you guys keep so quiet about it? If this was the state in any other country, the people would have revolted against the government!"

You may have guessed it right. He was talking about our 'dear' city - 'Namma Kudla', the one and only Mangalore. And he was talking about nothing else than our roads. Roads to hell indeed !

The roads are being laid and re-laid every year. But the surface comes off within no time. It is spoken publicly that about 50% per cent of the contract value is shared regularly among the officials, elected representatives -not all of them, there are some clean-handed persons - and contractors - so loudly that we are but forced to believe it. When this is the state of affairs, what quality do you expect in the work? (It is a different matter if some colleagues in the media insist that even that figure of 50% could be a modest underestimate.)

Secondly, no sooner is the surface laid than some agency or private telephone operator starts digging the edges. Then after some time, the surface is done up again. Media reports say that the firms pay the MCC suitable compensation to bring the roads back into shape. But they are not retrieved to their original condition immediately.

Only two options are possible. Either the telephone operators don't pay, which they firmly deny when enquired about, or the MCC does not utilize the money for the intended purpose, but, instead, pockets it. Then where does the money go? Our City Fathers and administrators owe us an answer, before the rains damage our roads any further.

Thirdly, some choice stretches of roads in the city have been concreted. So far so good. But, pray, what stops our city corporation from bestowing the same generosity on all the roads?

Here again, the public opinion is that certain elected representatives and officials are against the idea of implementing this permanent solution. Or else, where will they have the eternal milching cow, of bitumenizing contracts being sanctioned every now and then?. Concreting the roads will permanently seal off this profitable conduit.

Here again, these are not insinuations, but an open secret.

Our state Lok Ayukta, Justice Venkatachala, has recently granted Dakshina Kannada the dubious distinction of being the most corrupt district in the state. He even wondered how a district of 'intelligent' people can have such a label.

Yet it has not hurt our pride, our honour. 

People know it is happening, but no one does anything. The state of our roads keeps ruining the tyres, shock absorbers and suspensions of our vehicles. Two-wheeler-riders run the risk of meeting with accidents while negotiating the lunar crater-like potholes, besides ending up with chronic backaches or slipped disc. Yet we remain resigned to our fate.

We are a people who would aim our guns over someone else's shoulders. We would not dare do anything constructive in the open. We would wait for someone else to do the dirty job of fighting and watch the fun from a distance.

We pay road taxes on our vehicles. Only a minuscule percentage of it is being spent on road maintenance. The local bodies have to shoulder much of the burden. At least the city administration is justified in saying that it does not get its legitimate share from the road tax collected from the district. It is time that our district representatives and in-charge ministers fight it out at the state level.

These pictures which will be viewed by this website's 100,000-plus readers - an official figure monitored as on June 6, 2006 - from over 140 countries are sure going to shock them. It would put our city and its citizens in poor light all right.

But if this succeeds in shaking the conscience of our rulers, our day is done.

Will it ever happen?