Karnataka - Mangalore   

It is a motorist’s nightmare

— Photo: R. Eswarraj

risky: Pits along the sides of the road on the Sulia-Subramania stretch are posing a hazard.

MANGALORE: Ask any voter in Puttur or Sullia about the problems they face, and they have only one answer: poor roads.

Autorickshaw drivers Mohammed Ashraf and B. Prabhakar described the poor condition of the Mangalore-Madikeri Road and said “if this is the condition of a main road in the city, imagine the roads in the countryside”.

Huge potholes and dangerously protruding boulders make driving a nightmare. Pedestrians and motorcyclists compete with one another to find which part of the road they can use.

The only change people have seen in the recent past is that the Sullia-Subrahmanya Road has been improved. But its width is enough only for one bus at a time.

Even if two cars have to cross or overtake, they have to slow down and drive cautiously. In most places, the road edges touch the bottom of vehicle’s body if their wheels get off the road.

At one point, after Dugladka, a huge pit next to the road has been filled with boulders and wooden logs to save vehicles that go off the road from serious damage.

Santosh, a cab driver, said that the axles of buses would break if the drivers tried to increase speed or got off the road, let alone cars. If you take a turn from Guttigaru towards Panja and Alangaru and Uppinangadi, be prepared for an arduous journey. No vehicle can cross 10-km an hour speed on this stretrch. “The roads have not seen any improvement in the last 10 years,” said Skaria, a rubber grower in Kalar.

A 150-metre-long bridge at Hosmath has no side wall. People of the nearby villages said that three persons had died after a cement-laden lorry plunged into the Gundya River during the last monsoon. K. Rajesh of Kamila village said that people staged a demonstration not long ago and resorted to filling the large potholes with mud. A few workers started the work on the stretch but disappeared after laying crushed stones and mud.

Although a few roads in Puttur town have improved, the roads in rural areas are in poor shape. The highway that passes through the town, Mangalore-Madikeri Road, has several potholes all along and the edges are not scientifically done. Taxi drivers using the road in Puttur and Sullia complain of frequent damage to spring plates and tyres. Suleiman of Sarve, near Puttur, said,

“The Puttur-Subrahmanya Road is in bad condition. The condition of the road from Ujrupade to Gumpukallu and Bhatti Vinayaka temple is not different.”

T. Satish, a lorry driver, said he had not seen improvement of roads in Puttur and Sullia for the last 12 years.

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