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Mangaluru, Jun 12: A huge crowd gathered for the grand opening of the newly built 175-metre-long two-lane bridge across Phalguni River on National Highway 169 near Gurupura on the outskirts of the city today.

Even as the photos of the bridge inauguration ceremony went viral on social media, netizens took the elected representatives and the district administration to task for flouting safety norms at a time when the coronavirus cases are continuing to mount in coastal Karnataka.

The bridge was completed in a record time of 15 months. Dakshina Kannada MP and State BJP President Nalin Kumar Kateel and district in-charge Minister Kota Srinivas Poojari inaugurated the bridge in the presence of Mangaluru City North MLA Y. Bharath Shetty and others.

The bridge has come as a breather to thousands of travellers between Mangaluru-Moodbidri-Karkala on the busy NH. The age-old steel bridge had become dilapidated and was a cause for concern for road users. The highway is also under the process of getting widened to four lanes.

The bridge was constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 30 crore by contractor Sudhakar Shetty of Mugrodi Construction. Work started in February last and the contractor had time till February next.

While the two-lane carriageway is 16 metres wide, the bridge has 2.5-metre-wide pedestrian paths on both the sides. New approach roads of 500 metres each were also part of the project.

Bengaluru, Apr 14: Bracing for post-lockdown hard times, the Karnataka government on Monday decided to auction about 12,000 BDA sites and regularise unauthorised constructions across the state in a bid to shore up its already-thin finances.

"Some 12,000 corner sites (developed by Bangalore Development Authority, or BDA) are lying idle in Bengaluru. We hope to net about Rs 15,000 crore from the auction of the sites," chief minister BS Yediyurappa said after chairing a meeting with senior ministers and officials to discuss ways to raise funds.

"The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown Karnataka into a deep financial crisis. There's a need for such measures," the chief minister said in defence of the decisions.

The sites – mainly of 40x60ft and 50x80ft dimensions – are in nine layouts. Also, the state government will auction corner and vacant sites in layouts formed by development authorities in other major cities of Karnataka.

Industry experts said that in a tepid market, it wasn’t easy to find buyers for the sites, each of which costs about Rs 1 crore. The CM said, “Since it’s an open auction, I’m confident of a good price since corner sites are always in demand. If we don’t get the expected price, then we will stop the process.”

The meeting decided to fast-track disposal of the cases related to regularisation of unauthorised constructions pending before courts. “If courts decide these cases, then thousands of people will be relieved, besides helping the government in mobilising resources to take up development works,” the CM said.

The government hopes to get about Rs 4,000 crore from the layout-regularisation move.
The government decided to amend the law to allow hundreds of private and cooperative housing societies to allot residential plots.

Kalaburagi, Apr 9: An FIR has been lodged against the management and staff of Bahamani Super Speciality Hospital here in Kalaburagi allegedly for not following procedures meant to deal with COVID-19 and hiding details of patients with coronavirus symptoms, said District Deputy Commissioner Sharath B on Wednesday.

The district family welfare department official and nodal officer of KPME Kalaburagi took cognisance of the reports that the private hospitals in the district are not informing the government about patients having COVID-19 symptoms and they are only reporting about such cases at the last moment.

"It has come to our light that some private hospitals in Kalaburagi city are hiding information about the patients who are having COVID-19 like symptoms and these cases are not being reported on time to us," said the District Deputy Commissioner.

"We verified the records of these hospitals and it is clear now that they are revealing the serious cases in the last moment when the treatment has not given any help to patients. Only then such cases are bringing to ESI hospital in Kalaburagi. We have taken steps to quarantine the entire staff member of Bahamani hospital. We have taken legal steps against them for non-compliance of the orders issued to them and for not reporting this matter to us at the earliest stage," he said.

A case has been registered under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 column 51, 58 and sections 269 and 188 of the Indian Penal Code.

He further said that two new cases were reported positive on April 8 and one person has succumbed to the infection because he was having a severe respiratory infection.
He appealed to everyone to strictly follow lockdown restrictions and not violate Section 144 at any cost.

Speaking about the attacks on Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) and Anganwadi workers, who were given a task to collect travel details of locals in view of coronavirus crisis, Sharath said: "Some of the health workers, ASHA and Anganwadi workers, who have been given a task to going from door to door to verify health status were troubled unnecessarily, saying that they have come to collect data for NRC and NPR."

"They are doing a survey on behalf of the district administration as they have to gather travelling information so that a person can be quarantined to contain COVID-19 spread. There has been an attack, a case has been registered in this regard," he said.