MCC improves access road to Mangaluru Junction railway station from Naguri

The corporation offers TDR to owner for 30 cents of land near the junction to eliminate bottleneck for creating a uniform nine-metre-wide road

The persistence of Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC), elected representatives, and social activists appears to have ensured construction of a wide approach road to Mangaluru Junction Railway Station from Naguri on the erstwhile NH 75 and the present Pumpwell-Padil four-lane road.

Mangaluru Junction Railway Station (MAJN) could be approached by two roads. One from Padil-Bajal Road near the Railway Over Bridge and the other from Naguri Junction on NH 75. While the one from Bajal Road was a bit wide and could accommodate two-way traffic including buses, the other from Naguri was narrow and only autorickshaws and two-wheelers could ply.

The city corporation undertook widening of the Naguri-MAJN Road to provide an alternative road to passengers about five years ago by requesting property owners adjacent to the road to part with a portion of their lands and also by offering transferable development rights (TDR) to them. Yet, a bottleneck near MAJN remained for about 100 metres.

Social activist Gopalakrishna Bhat who rigorously followed up the matter with the MCC, MLA D. Vedavyas Kamath ,and the Railways, said the corporation has now acquired some land at the location to provide direct access to the station. He said MCC officials, area councillor and the MLA were able to convince the land owner to part with the land.

An engineer with the MCC told The Hindu that the corporation has taken about 30 cents of land by offering TDR to the owner. Earthwork has commenced and the concreting of the portion will get completed in a couple of months. Once complete, the road would have a uniform width of nine metres from Naguri to MAJN, the engineer said.

Mr. Bhat said the station improvement work of MAJN being taken up under Amrit Bharat Scheme by the Southern Railway’s Palakkad Division perfectly gels with the widening of the approach road. The revised alignment now directly joins the parking lot of the station while the road could accommodate even buses, he said.

Published - October 03, 2024 07:55 pm IST