K'taka CM directs shifting of some govt offices to Belagavi's Suvarna Vidhana Soudha

Bengaluru, June 3: Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Wednesday directed authorities to identify state level government offices to be shifted from the city to Suvarna Vidhana Soudha in Belagavi within a month and execute it, with an aim to address regional imbalance. He also "warned" that he would personally review functioning of offices from there before the next meeting, CMO said in a statement.

Yediyurappa held a meeting to review the functioning of Public Works, Ports and Inland Water Transport departments. Suvarna Vidhana Soudha, modelled on Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat in Bengaluru, where legislature session is held once a year, was built as an assertion that Belagavi is an integral part of Karnataka.

Maharashtra claims Belagavi should belong to it. Other than the session held once a year for about two weeks, the building remains mostly unutilised. It has been long standing demand of the people of north Karnataka to shift some government offices to Suvarna Vidhana Soudha in Belagavi, aimed at addressing regional imbalance, and for the benefit of citizens of the regions, who otherwise have to travel to Bengaluru.

In 2018, then Congress-JDS coalition government in the state had given in principle approval to shift some government departments, boards and commissions to the north Karnataka region to address the alleged discrimination. At the meeting, the Chief Minister also directed officials to complete the work on roads and bridges that was damaged during the floods last year.

Officials apprised the Chief Minister of flood related repair and restoration work taken up at a cost of Rs 500 crore and completion of about 1700 km out of 1800 km of road work. They said construction and repair work of bridges was under progress. With appointment of engineers getting delayed, the CM issued directions to appoint unemployed engineers as trainees.

He also gave instructions to complete the Shivamogga airport work near Sogane in the district in a year, without compromising on the quality. Noting that land has been identified for the construction of airport at Vijayapura, he asked officials to take necessary action after conducting a review. During the meeting, a decision was taken to upgrade 1,650 km of rural roads into district main roads and 10,110 km of district main roads into state highways.