Mangaluru cabinet meeting: CM DKS asks Chief Secretary to vet coastal demands for cabinet agenda

Bengaluru: Manjunath Bhandary, Congress MLC and KPCC working president, has put a broad set of coastal Karnataka demands before Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, headed by a Rs. 5,000-crore special development package. The demand is made as the Karnataka Cabinet prepares to sit in Mangaluru on September 18.

Bhandary’s office said the Chief Minister has told the Chief Secretary to study the main items and act so they can enter the Cabinet agenda. The memorandum asks that those items be listed for the Mangaluru sitting.

The proposals run across infrastructure, fisheries, agriculture, tourism, education, sports and cultural preservation and call for focused state spending in the three coastal districts. The Rs. 5,000-crore package is framed as comprehensive development of the coast, with stress on infrastructure, fisheries and tourism. Bhandary has also asked for a lasting, scientifically designed answer to coastal erosion, which has marked several stretches of the Karnataka shore.

He wants the agriculture diploma college at Brahmavar in Udupi district turned into an agricultural university, using its 342 acres and existing buildings valued at about Rs. 20 crore, plus Rs. 10 crore more and ten teaching posts on contract so degree teaching can start. Present agriculture diploma courses at Brahmavar would move to the university campus at Kattalgeri in Davanagere district.

The Fisheries College in Mangaluru would become a separate fisheries university for higher study and research in fisheries, aquaculture, marine science, fish processing and value-addition technologies. A Karnataka Fisheries Council would coordinate schemes, take up fishermen’s problems and tighten work among departments.

An aquapark in Mangaluru, modern cold storage at major fishing centres, a rise in compensation for families of fishermen who die at sea from Rs. 5 lakh to Rs. 10 lakh, and a larger diesel subsidy for boats are also listed.

An advanced skill-development centre in Mangaluru would give industry-oriented practical training to students from about 25 engineering, polytechnic, ITI and hotel-management institutions, together numbering about 50,000.

A coastal tourism network would link Gokarna, Murudeshwar, Kollur, Udupi Sri Krishna Matha, Sringeri, Horanadu, Kukke Subrahmanya, Dharmasthala and Mangaladevi. Other tourism items include a coastal parallel road from Talapady to Baindur, about 150 acres along the shore for tourism, private hotels of international standard on the Bekal model in Kerala, an international convention centre and public parks.

For Pilikula, he has asked for a formal allotment of the 356 acres now leased to the Pilikula Development Authority, conversion of that authority into a board with a full-time chairperson, and release of the remaining Rs. 12.60 crore for the Urban Eco Park, which stalled for lack of money.

Culture and sport items include an annual special grant of at least Rs. 10 crore for Yakshagana, Bayalata, traditional and modern Kambala and folk forms of the Koraga, Marati Naik and Kudubi communities; Cabinet clearance for a Rs. 7-crore international-standard kabaddi stadium in Udupi named after former Union minister Oscar Fernandes; separate funds for infrastructure and sports gear in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi; and a sports university at Belapu in Udupi district, backed by the Higher Education Department, VTU, Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences and CSR money.

Bhandary said the Mangaluru Cabinet sitting should produce firm administrative clearances and money for work that meets long-pending coastal needs.

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