Roads or Kambla Track?

Puttur (Dakshina Kannada district): This agrarian town on the hilly side of the district is crying for attention. The district administration, MLA, and city council have turned deaf ears and blind eyes towards the infrastructure of the town The roads have become so bad and unsafe, both for motorists and pedestrians. People are now asking if the MLA of Puttur, Ashok Rai, intended to hold another Kambla (slush track buffalo race) on the roads of Puttur. Rai had taken the Kambla sport to Bangalore and held it there with great success, after which he has made himself scarce to hear out the woes of the people of the town he represents.

Concerned citizens have even appealed to the Deputy Commissioner and the Assistant Commissioner that the 2.5 kilometres stretch between Bolwar and Darbe, which passes through the central part of the city, is in shambles. There are big potholes, and the edges of the roads have been severely eroded and have become unusable and unsafe, say the citizen committees.

The two pages of appeal given to the Deputy Commissioner of the district narrate the pathetic condition of the road and lack of road markings, particularly the Zebra crossings near the police station, market, bus stand, and the Mahalingeshwara temple. They said that though the Deputy Commissioner comes to Puttur frequently, there is action taken to address the problems of the road users.

We are not able to contact the MLA or the municipal authorities to air the grievances they complained about. The Rikshaw driver association, the Taximen association, and the private bus operators have also expressed their anger at this neglect of roads. The KSRTC Mangalore Mysore Bangalore schedule that operates multi-axel buses takes at least 20 minutes to cross this stretch due to frequent roadblocks and slow-moving traffic due to bad roads.