The Newly Renamed Town Hall ‘(Kudmul Ranga Rao Purabhavana) Campus has become a Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) Dump Yard – let’s call it a “Mini Pachanady Dump Yard?”
Mangaluru: On one hand Mangaluru City Corporation officials raid illegal street vendors, confiscate their items and their make-shift shops, thereby making the streets look clean and making way for vehicle parking, but on the other hand, all the debris collected after demolishing the illegal street vendors shops is dumped in the premises of Kudmul Ranga Rao Purabhavana, earlier known as “Town Hall-Mangaluru”, thus making it look ugly. Is this Swachh Mangaluru that we are talking about. Absolutely, NOT SMART for SMART CITY-MANGALURU!
If at all the newly renovated Town Hall- Mangaluru looks pretty good inside, but outside it looks like a scrapyard. The cost of the renovation was around Rs 4.58 crore. Acoustical equipment, false ceiling, lights, stage, seats, air conditioner, generator and other amenities have been installed. Based on the artistes’ feedback, teak wood flooring for the stage has been installed. Sophisticated lights, various facilities in the green room for the artistes, including AC, LEDs, signboard, the garden outside the Town Hall and many other facilities have been added. And if you are inside the hall watching a programme, and if you happen to see through the doors on the left side of the hall, you will notice a huge pile of scrap, garbage etc dumped on the premises.
Going back to the history of Town Hall–it was opened on December 29, 1964-it was closed for renovation in mid-September 2014. Renovation work started on October 18, 2014, in view of its Golden Jubilee. Everything looks great with the newly renovated Town Hall- except for the ugly scene of a mountain of scrap consisting of rusted street lights, demolished street vendors shops, plastic bottles, etc etc etc etc. The debris is from the recently demolished petty shops during a raid by MCC, and even though the Mangaluru City Corporation had tried to auction all that scrap, no scrap dealers were willing to bid in the auction, it is learnt. The main reason, the scrap dealers are reluctant to buy this scrap, for the fact that there are not much of recyclable steel parts, and also that transporting all that scrap will cost them a fortune. Since they won’t be making any money by hauling all that scrap, unfortunately, all that scrap is still lying in the premises of Town Hall, exposing a bad scene to everyone visiting the town Hall.
A few days ago, MCC with the help of a JCB returned a few items of the street vendors that were taken during the recent raid. When Team Mangalorean contacted one of the MCC officials, he assured that the clean up will be done very shortly.- and in the meantime, the pile of the garbage still lies there- and chances are that the waste will still be there when the current MCC Mayor ends his term?.
