Farmers oppose road widening in Gondhalli ahead of VP’s visit
The PWD authorities took up the widening and retarring of roads ahead of vice president Jagadeep Dhankar’s visit to Isha Yoga Foundation in Avalagurkhiv village in Chikkaballapura, near the famous tourist spot Nandi hills on January 15.
Farmers in Gondhalli in the Chikkaballapura district on Sunday staged a protest on Saturday, opposing the development of roads connecting to the Isha Yoga foundation.
The PWD authorities took up the widening and retarring of roads ahead of vice president Jagadeep Dhankar’s visit to Isha Yoga Foundation in Avalagurkhiv village in Chikkaballapura, near the famous tourist spot Nandi hills on January 15.
This is the second centre of the Isha Foundation, headed by Sadguru, after the headquarters in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu.
Spread over 100 acres and surrounded by hillocks on all four sides, the latest facility of Isha Foundation is expected to be fully functional in three years. The Chikkaballapur centre will be a replica of the Coimbatore campus, including the 112-feet Adiyogi Shiva statue, and eight Navagraha temples, with a unique Bhairavi temple, officials at Isha Foundation said.
Ahead of the vice president’s visit, the PWD officials took up the widening of the road by using JCB and Hitachis. But a few villagers of Gondhalli strongly objected to the widening and held a dharna. The police forcibly sent them out off the road. Villagers alleged that the officials are laying the road out of the plan and causing loss of land to villagers.
“The village road is filled with potholes due to rain. The villagers even staged a protest urging the government to repair the road. But now some villagers are strongly objecting to the retarring of the road,” Chikkaballapura PWD executive engineer B Thimma Rayappa said.
He said that as per the plan, the road has a width of 5.5 meters, and they are widening the road from 3.75 meters to 5.5 meters. He clarified that the authorities are not encroaching on any farmers’ land to widen the road. He said a farmer availed a stay order from the court against the widening of the road, claiming it is his land. “But we are not laying a road in that survey number. That, too, was acquired for the road in 1935. We have official records,” he added.
On October 8, Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai inaugurated the ‘Naga Mantapa’ in the presence of Sadhguru at the Isha Yoga Centre, on the outskirts of Chikkaballapura, which is about 65kms from Bengaluru city.