Analysis by P. Ramesh Rao.
Mangalore : It is 60 years since we established Indian democratic Republic in 1948 (Jan 30). But our city roads, district roads, taluk roads and village roads are in miserable pot-hole, eroded, neglected conditions when vehicles on such roads are alarmingly increasing.
The Transport- Commissioner is no longer responsible for the bad conditions of our local roads, leave alone National Highways, and royal roads of Bangalore and Mysore. Who is responsible for roads in good trafficable conditions is anybody’s guess. Leaving the responsibility to others by an Act or an order or a notification is not the end of such problem, but the beginning.
Not only roads but our drainage systems cry out for improvement, but our executive staff and elite workers drawing good salaries behave like moderns Brahmins who won’t touch dirt and sewage, even to clear them out. Who should do it? Who has to construct proper concrete and macadamized roads and drainable dirty water clearance processes known as sewage clearance systems? Is there a Municipal Corporation at lower levels of ZP,TP and GP for rural entities, blocks, taluk head quarter and zilla Parishads which can look after or maintain tarred roads, jelly roads, concrete roads, drainage channels at the edges of these roads? Or do we live in hell all the time, while Mayors and chair persons move about in Toyota/Ambassador cars as if they are heavenly gods? Is there somebody in each city and PWD levels to answer the people, apart from Health officers who invite diseases?