Potholed approach road to airport near Marakada to be fixed soon

Mangaluru: The Mangaluru International Airport (MIA) has been handling a constant rise in traffic, with the airport handling almost 20.2 lakh passengers in 2023-24, but the airport users have been plagued with half-a-kilometre of bad stretch from Marakada till the end of the city corporation limits, after which the PWD maintained state highway starts.The situation has been like this for the past one year, and the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) authorities have failed to maintain the road which is under its purview. Former Mayor Sudheer Shetty Kannur said that he has directed the engineers to fill potholes with wet mix as a temporary measure, till permanent works are undertaken.
Shetty claims that Rs 2.8 crore was earmarked for four lane rigid pavement from Marakada Junction till the start of the PWD road. By then the government changed, and the Mahatma Gandhi Nagar Vikas Yojana (MGNVY) I grant was not sanctioned. The government also cancelled some of the tenders, otherwise the four-lane work would have been completed till the bridge by now, he said.
Regarding temporary measures, he said there are funds for patch work. "I have told the assistant executive engineer of the corporation to use wet mix and give temporary relief to commuters. The work may start soon," he said. Under MGNVY I there were Rs 125 crore funds earmarked for Mangaluru City North and South. "In that package, only Rs 33 crore was sanctioned, and rest of the tenders were cancelled," he noted.
In Feb this year, urban development minister BS Suresh said that each of the 60 wards in Mangaluru city will get more than Rs 3 crore for infrastructure development under the MGNVY-2.0. Hence, the city corporation should send an action plan to the government, the minister had said.
Maravoor bridge inspected
A technical committee from Bengaluru inspected the Maravoor bridge on Tuesday, which had been flagged as deteriorated by the public works department (PWD) in June this year. Following this, the deputy commissioner had banned the movement of all vehicles on the old bridge at Maravoor, on the Mangaluru-Mangaluru International Airport road.
The pillars of the old Maravoor bridge are damaged, and the committee used a huge crane to check the underside of the bridge, and collected samples of the concrete and steel from the girder and pillar. They will submit the review report to the DC after analysis of the collected material.
As of now, traffic movement is unhindered due to traffic being allowed on the new bridge, adjacent to the old one. Even after the inauguration of the new bridge more than a year back, vehicles are not allowed to move on the two lanes, since there are some pending work to be finished, said a department official.