Road users will see photos of Siddaramaiah and PWD minister H C Mahadevappa on newly laid State highways every few minutes Road contractors have been directed to erect these display boards comprising road details, for every 5 km The government will be spending around Rs 10 crore of tax payer’s money on these advertisements
Recently, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi advised the Karnataka Congressmen not to “waste” the tax payer’s money on government advertisements. But these words seem to have fallen on deaf ears, as the Congress government wants to do exactly that.
And how! It’s been decided to erect display boards with photos of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and PWD Minister H C Mahadevappa on either sides -- every 5 km of the State highways developed by the Karnataka State Highways Improvement Project (KSHIP). With ten months left for the 2018 Assembly elections, the Congress government has embarked upon this brazen poll campaign.
KSHIP’s chief project officer (CPO) has directed the project director (PD) to mandatorily erect overhead gantries on all KSHIP roads developed under the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank packages.
The same finds mention in the proceedings of the KSHIP meeting held on June 5. The gantries shall “invariably” have photos of both Siddaramaiah and Mahadevappa, states the proceedings. The government will shell out close to Rs 10 crore on this exercise.
When contacted, KSHIP project director Balakrishna said that the department was in the process of readying the format for the display boards. He however said that no decision had been taken about usage of photographs of the Chief Minister and the PWD Minister. “We are getting format readied for the boards, but we have not yet finalised the usage of photographs.
The boards will comprise details of when the road was laid, distances between roads, apart from directions,” he said. The officer also said that the boards will be erected once the ongoing road works are completed. “These boards will be put up only on the new roads of about 400 kms. Some of the roads will be completed by September or October,” he added.
