Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday laid the foundation for the remodelling of 842 km of stormwater drains in the city at Laggere.
These drains are connected to the four valleys of Bengaluru namely, Challaghatta, Hebbal, Koramangala and Vrushabhavathi. The BBMP will construct 192 km of concrete drains at a cost of Rs 800 crore. Under the project, RCC box drain, RCC ‘U’-shaped retaining wall and 19 RCC culverts will be constructed.
Siddaramaiah said this project was planned to prevent flooding that affected parts of the city in 2016. “So far, 142 km of the of 842 km drains have been improved while we have approved construction of 192 km of drains. The grants will be released for the rest of the drains,” he said.
He added that so far, Rs 89 crore has been spent on the construction of the drains. Rajarajeshwari Nagar MLA Munirathna said there are nine acres and 26 guntas of government land in his constituency of which four-and-a-half acres would be utilised for developing the Dr Rajkumar Park and the rest will be used for Dr Vishnuvardhan Playground. These facilities will be dedicated to the public on November 1.
Corporator manhandled
Tension prevailed at the event when some women, claiming to be the supporters of Rajarajeshwarinagar Congress MLA Munirathna, pulled the saree and hair of JD(S) corporator from Laggere ward Manjula Narayanaswamy.
A visibly disturbed Manjula blamed Munirathna for the incident. Munirathna retorted by saying that his supporters were not behind the incident and he should not be held responsible for the incident which took place in his absence.
It all started when Manjula was prevented from addressing the gathering during the foundation-laying ceremony. Meanwhile, Siddaramaiah too left the venue saying he has to attend another programme.
She then approached the reporters standing there. When she was about to speak, a few women lunged at her and warned her against uttering anything against the MLA. When she started speaking to reporters, four women pulled her saree and hair.
Hurt by the incident, Manjula said: “I neither received any invitation nor was I informed about the arrival of the chief minister. I wanted to tell people how I have been ignored. I had even asked Mayor G Padmavathi and the chief minister to allow me to speak but they silenced me.”
She said she would raise the matter with JD(S) national president H D Deve Gowda and former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy.