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Showers claim 8 lives in 24 hours; Kodagu, DK almost cut off; Rs 200cr announced

coastaldigest.com web desk
August 17, 2018

Bengaluru/Mangaluru, Aug 17: At least eight people lost their lives in many others suffered injuries in rain related tragedies across Karnataka in 24 hours till Thursday night.

Four people were killed, while four others were injured in separate house wall collapse incidents in Kalaburagi, Bidar and Shivamogga districts.

A woman and her two daughters were killed on the spot after the wall of their neighbour’s house came crashing down on the room where they were asleep on Wednesday night at Hithal Sirur village, Aland taluk, Kalaburagi district. The victims are Lakshmi Bhai P Odeyar (30), Ambika (10) and Yellamma (8), both class 3 and 2 students of the local government school.

Masood (5), a resident of Konanduru, Thirthahalli taluk, was killed after the wall of his house collapsed on him on Thursday morning. He was having coffee when the incident occurred.

The district administration has announced Rs 5 lakh compensation to the victim’s family. At Muthangi village, Humnabad taluk, Bidar district, three members of a family were seriously injured after roof of their house fell on them on Thursday.

The body of Halesh Adiveppa Karigar, who was washed in flash flood in Tungabahdra river at Kavalettu village near Kumarapattana in Harihar taluk, was traced on Thursday.

At least three people were buried under soil when a hillock collapsed at Katakeri near Madikeri. Two of the deceased have been identified as Yeshwanth, 35, and Venkataramana, 45.

Several houses collapsed in a few localities of Madikeri city, following heavy rains on Thursday.

Gruel centres have been opened at Kodava Samaja and Gowda Samaja for those affected by floods in Cauvery and Harangi rivers in Kushalnagar and surrounding villages.

Several houses have collapsed due to heavy winds and showers in Somwarpet taluk of the district. People in many villages are abandoning their homes due to the fear of landslides.

Deluge in Kodagu

As many as 85,000 cusecs of water was released from the Harangi reservoir due to heavy inflow following copious showers in the catchment areas of the dam.

The Madikeri-Hassan state highway has been completely submerged following the release of water. Traffic has been prohibited on the bridge across River Harangi at Kudige in Kushalnagar taluk of Kodagu district, as cracks were identified there.

Amrita Coffee Curing Works has reported huge losses as water entered its premises at Kudluru. The Morarji Desai English medium school at Kudige has been flooded and students have been shifted to a safer place. The Cauvery Nisargadhama has been closed for visitors.

The residential area near the Harangi reservoir populated by workers who had come from Tamil Nadu during the construction of the dam has been flooded, rendering hundreds of them homeless. Their huts have been washed away.

Several houses have been flooded at Gonikoppal in the district following a flood in the Keerihole stream. The Gonikoppal-Ponnampet road faces the threat of being submerged.

Several acres of paddy fields were destroyed by the overflowing Kajur stream in Shanivarasanthe and nearby villages. Coffee estates have also been waterlogged in the area. Hoilday has been declared for schools and colleges in the district on Friday and Saturday.

Roads have gone under water, putting residents at the mercy of coracles to reach their destinations. Hundreds of paddy fields have been flooded in these villages.

The bridge connecting Virajpet and Madikeri at Bhetri has been flooded and vehicular movement has been banned on the bridge. Affected families were shifted to gruel centres at Hemmadu village.

Dakshina Kannada disconnected

Meanwhile, incessant rains and landslides have almost cut-off Dakshina Kannada district from the rest of the State with road and rail connectivity remaining affected.

The Shiradi (towards Hassan) and Sampaje (towards Madikeri) ghats have been closed following landslips. Hence, Charmadi Ghat (towards Mudigere) is the only available entry and exit. However, frequent traffic jams are being witnessed there.

Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) has suspended operations of its premium services (Rajahamsa and Airavat) between the coastal areas and hinterland and is operating only express (Karnataka Sarige) services through Charmadi Ghat.

Private tourist bus service operators have routed their sleeper services via Charmadi and air-conditioned services via Balebare/ Hulikal Ghats.

While rail connectivity between the hinterland and the coastal areas continues to remain affected at least till Friday, services towards Kerala and Chennai too came to be suspended on Thursday.

A senior official of the Southern Railway in the Mangaluru region said that trains were being sent till Kuttipuram in Kerala while operations between Shoranur and Palakkad have been suspended till Friday evening. Services on the Kozhikode-Shoranur section have been suspended till further orders, the official said.

Though South Western Railway has announced diverting train services between Bengaluru and the coastal region via Salem and Palakkad till August 22, services may operate only if sections in Kerala become operational. The section between Sakleshpur and Subrahmanya Road is witnessing frequent landslips.

Rs 200 crore for rain-hit districts

Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, after reviewing the situation in rain-affected districts of Kodagu, Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Hassan, Shivamogga, Chikkamagaluru, and Uttara Kannada, announced that Rs. 200 crore would be released for relief measures.

Deputy Commissioners of these districts had been directed to submit a report on losses incurred, within two days. Based on their reports, a memorandum would be submitted to the Union government seeking aid. As many as 29 relief camps are providing shelter to 1,755 people.

Comments

Farooq
 - 
Friday, 17 Aug 2018

From our side we should help. contribute and do services with your own expertise

Ramprasad
 - 
Friday, 17 Aug 2018

Take necessory steps now onwards. Set Kerala as an example

Danish
 - 
Friday, 17 Aug 2018

Govt should provide helpline numbers immediately

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News Network
February 10,2020

Bengaluru, Feb 10: Senior Congress leader DK Shivakumar on Sunday hit out at the BJP and RSS for taking out a route march in Ramanagara against the controversial Jesus Christ statue.

“Just because the BJP won 25 seats in the Lok Sabha polls, Congress workers need not lose hope. If the Congress and JD(S) had worked out a better strategy, the BJP would not have won even 10 seats. We will correct our mistakes,” the former Congress minister said.

After the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP has failed to do well in assembly polls and has been losing power in many states. People are hitting the streets protesting against its policies such as CAA and NRC, he said.

Accusing the BJP and RSS of not being able to digest Congress’ victory in the Bengaluru Rural Lok Sabha segment in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, he said that the BJP is trying hard to make inroads into the constituency represented by his brother D K Suresh. “Let them take out route march, we don’t care,” he said.

“We all know what the BJP did during the Lok Sabha elections, and the media reported how much money they spent in the elections. What was the Election Commission doing? Was the Income Tax Department sitting with its eyes closed? Why did they conduct raids only in Hassan, Shivamogga and Mandya districts,” he asked.

He alleged that false cases were slapped when him and other leaders, including H D Kumaraswamy, Siddaramaiah, G Parameshwara and Dinesh Gundurao.

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News Network
March 4,2020

Bengaluru, Mar 4: The Karnataka High Court has issued a notice to the state government in connection with the denial of retirement benefits to a retired deputy commissioner of commercial taxes who had fought against the illegal iron ore lobby.

Justice G Narendra also directed the state to respond to the notice before March 9, stating the reasons for withholding the officer’s retirement benefits.

Advocate Ramananda, appearing for the retired officer Josephat Andrews, explained that the single-judge bench also warned the government of stringent action.

Petitioner Josephat Andrews said his retirement benefits amounting to Rs 25.88 lakh were being withheld since 2014.

In 2009, Andrews detected a huge scam involving Vijaya Leasing, a company associated with former minister Gali Janardhan Reddy. Immediately he wrote to his higher officials explaining to them how the department was owed Rs 1,400 crore in taxes by the company. Immediately after that, Andrews was transferred to Bengaluru.

The media exposed the scam in 2012. Thereafter, to harass the officer, Andrews was served notice for allegedly not conducting an inspection of M/s Vijaya Leasing, which was controlled by the family of then tourism minister Gali Janardhana Reddy, on July 11, 2012.  He was discharged by a full departmental enquiry.

The petitioner was issued a second show cause notice on Jan 29, 2014 on the same charges. Before his retirement, he was docked two increments, denied promotional benefits and his pension was reduced without following due process.

He was served yet another notice with charges that he did not inspect goods vehicles, and an order was passed on April 30, 2019 reducing his pension by 5 per cent, an unprecedented punitive action.

This order was quashed by the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal (KAT), which also ordered payment of retirement benefits to Andrews within five months. However, the benefits were not released to him.  

“Rule 214 of the Karnataka Civil Services Rules (KCSR) make it clear that no enquiry can be held four years after an officer’s retirement.  Belying all statutory rules and precedents of the Supreme Court, Josephat Andrews’ retirement benefits were withheld for five years. Andrews therefore approached the High Court,” advocate Ramananda explained.

Josephat Andrews recalled to Deccan Chronicle that although mining activity was in full swing in 2008, the commercial tax department maintained that it had nothing to do with mining. “I travelled to Gujarat, Maharashtra and Bellary to investigate. I found tax evasion of thousands of crores. When I visited M/s the Vijaya Leasing facility – it was operating from an old oil mill premises–within 20 minutes I got calls from Ali, a person claiming to be the personal assistant of Gali Janardhan Reddy. He told me to get out of the premises as it belonged to his boss. Then calls came from minister Sreeramulu and MLA Nagendra. 

Within minutes 200-300 rowdies gathered around the building and my superior asked me to come back. Instead of filing a police complaint and forming a special team to deal with the situation, the department transferred me to Bengaluru,” he explained.

Talking about the High Court directive, Josephat Andrews said, “I have suffered a lot. Instead of getting a reward for increasing revenues by Rs 2,000 crore, I was punished.”

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News Network
May 22,2020
Bengaluru, May 22: Evacuation planes from Male in Maldives and Doha in Qatar landed in Bengaluru with returnees from Karnataka after they were stranded for two months due to suspension of international flights since March 23 and the extended lockdown, an official said on Friday.
 
"An Air-India flight (#0266) with 152 passengers from Male and its subsidiary Express flight (IX-0822) with 177 returnees and 5 infants from Doha landed here safely at 6.50 pm. and 9.05 pm respectively," an airline official told media persons in Bengaluru.
 
Both the flights are first from their respective countries to Bengaluru, bringing in returnees to the southern state in the second phase of the Vande Bharat mission, being carried out to evacuate Indians stranded the world over.
 
"As per the standard operating procedure and guidelines of the state health department, all the passengers were screened with thermal device and tested to ensure they were asymptomatic before leaving the airport," a nodal officer said.
 
The returnees were given a spare mask to wear all the time and a sanitiser to wash their hands.
 
"The luggage of all passengers was screened and disinfected before handing over to them after they completed formalities such as filling the self-declaration form and downloading of the Quarantine App for contact tracing later,” said the official.
 
The passengers were ferried from the airport in state-run buses in batches for 14-day institutional quarantine in hotels and resorts across the city.
 
The flights were the 6th and 7th flights to Karnataka, of the national carrier and its Express arm, which are operating the service to repatriate thousands of Indians, including distressed workers, migrants, students, senior citizens and tourists, stranded overseas.
 
Five flights have flown about 650 returnees till date from May 18-21 under the mission's second phase to Bengaluru and Mangaluru on the west coast. The passengers have been brought from Dubai in the UAE, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Muscat in Oman, Dammam in Saudi Arabia and San Francisco in the US.
 
The remaining flights to Karnataka will land in Bengaluru and Mangaluru over the next 12 days till June 3 from 9-10 more destinations the world over.
 
In the first phase of the mission from May 7-17, the airline and its arm flew 6 flights to the state from May 11-15, bringing in 800 passengers, including 623 to Bengaluru and 177 to Mangaluru from London, Singapore, San Francisco and Dubai.

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