Shirady Ghat stretch on highway to be closed for 6 months

People travelling between Mangalore and Bangalore will be put to inconvenience as the Shirady Ghat stretch of National Highway 75 will be closed for vehicular traffic from December to May.

This was revealed at a meeting convened by the Dakshina Kannada district administration in Mangalore on Friday.

Participating in the meeting, AG Dharmaraj, Executive Engineer of the Karnataka Public Works Department, said work on concretising the 26-km-stretch of road on the Shirady Ghat section will be conducted from December 1 to May 30.

CN Nataraj, Executive Engineer of the National Highways division of the Karnataka Government, said an advisory panel of the State Government has suggested the design for concretising the 26-km stretch of road on the Ghat section. BB Pandey, Professor from IIT Kharagpur, and RK Jain, former Chief Engineer of Haryana, were members of this panel.

Based on their suggestions, concretising work will be undertaken on the section at a cost of ₹150 crore.

Work on the first 13-km-stretch of road has been awarded to Ocean Constructions Ltd of Mangalore at a cost of ₹63 crore, Nataraj said.

Tendering is in progress for the other 13-km stretch of road. It will take another 45 days to complete the tendering process, Dharmaraj said.

AB Ibrahim, Deputy Commissioner of Dakshina Kannada district, who chaired the meeting, asked the departments concerned to make alternative arrangements for vehicular traffic during the period of closure.