Annual Ganga Puja offered to Nethravathi at Thumbay

23.02.10 : Nothing has been achieved alone as a mayor of Mangalore, but achieved with hepl of all officials,” said Mayor Shankar Bhat after offering “Ganga Puja” to the Nethravathi River at the Thumbay vented dam on Feb 23, Tuesday.

Speaking to media persons for the last time as mayor of Mangalore, the civic body has made a profit of Rs 18 crore and is aiming at Rs 24 crore for the coming financial year.

He also said that the water level has risen from 14 – 15 MGD to 34 – 35 MGD. He assured that the Mangalore City Corporation (MCC) will soon be able to provide continuous water supply to all the areas coming under its jurisdiction from Thumbay.

Speaking about MCC’s road-widening projects, the mayor said that the civic body has spend Rs 98.40 crore on concretizing 32 kms of the 36 kms marked for concretization.

Krishna J Palemar, District-in-charge Minister said that according to the engineers 20 months are required to complete the Thumbay vented dam and that the work will be completed in 2 years. There are a lot of private land surrounded at Thumbay area, for which a survey had to be conducted to check the levels of water and land. The MCC has decided to construct an additional water storage facility under the dam’s window system at a height of 7 meters. However, if it  cause any harm to the people living in the neighborhood then the civic body is ready to reduce the height to 6 meters, he added.

Minister said that the profits gained by the MCC from water bills and Akrama Sakrama schemes will be spent on infrastructure development. Further MCC will work to provide a dust-free city to the people of Mangalore.

MLA Yogesh Bhat said that around 90 percent of the drinking water problem has been solved by MCC and the rest of the 10 percent still remains a problem because of the topography of Mangalore.

Chairman of the Coastal Development Authority B Nagaraj Shetty, Deputy Mayor Rajani Dugganna, former Mayor Shashidhar Hegde, State President of BJP Padmanabha Kottari, Opposition Leader Harinath, Revathi, Tilak Raj, Vijay Kumar, Commissioner of MCC Dr. Vijaya Prakash, Ganesh Hosabettu, and many others were present.