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Fast for early completion of road overbridge

By Our Staff Reporter

KARUR, NOV.23. Hundreds of men and women from all walks of life residing at Vengamedu here today observed a fast, demanding the early completion of the road overbridge across the railway track and establishing a level crossing. Shopkeepers in the area downed shutters to join the protest.

The road overbridge problem is hanging fire as the executing contractor and the railway authorities have been waging a legal battle to the detriment of the suffering public for quite a few months now.

The public formed an apolitical committee comprising the area elders and others in organising the fast and highlighting their long-pending demand. The half-complete bridge is posing as big a problem as before when the bridge work was not taken up, complain the harrowed public.

Politicians of all hues assured them that they would take up the cause of the Vengamedu public but the road overbridge remains dangling, what with the deck over the railway track yet to be constructed and the matter pending before the Madras High Court.

The residents and the traders (the Vengamedu houses a lot of textile trading houses and other business establishments) have been demanding a road overbridge for decades. But as their dreams are turning into reality, the legal tussle between the contractor supposed to execute the railway portion of the bridge and the railways is taking a toll of the residents.

The plight of the public while crossing the track is pitiable as either they have to stoop to less than five feet to cross a slushy sub way or make a cross country effort to take their vehicles over the tracks that do not have plank or parallel loop line to have a crossing wooden plank. Most distraught are the aged, infirm, children and women apart from the numerous persons who carry bundles of yarn and textile products and who had to wither all the trouble in traversing a small stretch, all because of grand official apathy.

Having been forced to put up with the insensitivity for long and despite several representations, the Vengamedu people today came out to the streets to stage the fast. In the meantime, the residents pressed the claims for a level crossing till such time the road overbridge is completed.

Hundreds of protestors sat all through the day blocking traffic in the already choked Vengamedu Main Road to highlight their grievances.

The Collector, G. Ramamoorthy, and the Superintendent of Police, Abhin Dinesh Modak, arrived at the fag end of the fast to meet the protestors. Mr. Ramamoorthy, after lending a patient ear to the public, said a consultative meeting has been called for in the first week of December with the Divisional Railway Manager, Palakkad, on the means to overcome the problem, he said.

Stating that the matter being sub judice, Mr. Ramamoorthy said the administration would do whatever was possible to help the residents. Later, he offered a glass of juice to a girl protestor to mark the culmination of the fast. A large contingent of police personnel was posted in the Vengamedu area but the day passed off peacefully sans any incident.

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