Daijiworld News Network - Mangalore (AF) - pics - Sathish Ira

Mangalore, Nov 11: People from all over the city gathered at the Town Hall here to place their problems before Lokayukta Justice Santhosh Hegde at the hearing of public grievance held on Friday November 10.

A total of 171 petitions were received by him during his four-day visit to Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts. At the public grievances hearing, as many as 93 petitions were filed.

Grievances ranged from illegal mining and construction of high-rise buildings without licence to compound wall built by a neighbour. When one person complained about MCC's failure to initiate measures to clear garbage near his house, Justice Hegde directed the commissioner to take action regarding the issue and gave a deadline of three weeks, failing which he promised to urge higher authorities to take action against MCC.

There were several other grievances, for which Justice Hegde promised to conduct inquiries and on several issues like drinking water problem, he directed the MCC to take appropriate action within four weeks.

Speaking to presspersons after the hearing, he said that the nature of complaints received in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts were similar and most of them pertained to revenue departments, police atrocities, electricity and regional transport offices of the districts.

Prior to this, he had also held public hearing at Kundapur, Udupi and Karkala. Justice Hegde made it clear that his office would keep a check on the officials to make sure they would not get away without acting on their promises.

Among those present at the hearing were deputy commissioner M Maheshwar Rao, zilla panchayat CEO A M Kunjappa, Lokayukta superintendent of police Chandrashekar Prasad and other officials.