THE CRIMINAL NEGLECT OF SHIRADI GHAT: A REGION BETRAYED BY DELIBERATE INDIFFERENCE

 For three long decades, the 40-kilometre Shiradi Ghat stretch of National Highway-75 — the only lifeline connecting Karnataka’s capital Bengaluru with its only all-weather port city Mangaluru — has stood as a monument to India’s administrative apathy. The road has been under “repair” since the 1990s, yet its condition today is as dangerous and unreliable as ever. Every year, once the monsoon recedes, repair work begins. And every year, the same cycle repeats: slow progress, abandoned works, no monitoring, and no accountability from the authorities responsible.

This is not a remote rural road. More than 25,000 vehicles — freight carriers, buses, emergency services, and daily commuters — depend on this corridor every single day. Yet the Union Ministry of Road Transport, led by Nitin Gadkari, has treated repeated petitions from citizens, industry bodies, and exporters with indifference. The ministry has never viewed this as a matter requiring urgent national attention, despite its centrality to Karnataka’s economy.

The consequences of this long neglect are severe. Karnataka’s export traffic is diverted unnecessarily to Chennai and Andhra ports, even though the Mangaluru port — fully equipped, strategically located, and underutilised — stands waiting. Transporters lose time and money. Tourism suffers. Businesses pay higher logistics costs. Thousands of ordinary citizens endure daily hardship, navigating a corridor that has become a safety hazard.

The irony is unmistakable. The Union government is investing heavily in eight-lane expressways to Chennai, Pune, and Hyderabad, promoting its infrastructure credentials with pride. Yet the need for a similar high-quality, access-controlled corridor between Bengaluru and Mangaluru — the state’s principal industrial and commercial hub — is ignored. Even the four-lane project announced three decades ago remains incomplete, both in the Ghat and beyond. This is not just delay; this is a systematic failure of governance.

The pattern reveals a deeper malaise: politically driven prioritisation. Regions that offer electoral rewards or align with the ruling party’s interests receive disproportionate attention. Coastal Karnataka — economically vibrant but politically less rewarding — is pushed to the margins. State BJP leaders, who routinely offer praise to the central leadership, have not even formed a delegation to meet the Prime Minister and demand resolution. Their silence speaks louder than their slogans.

The cost of this neglect is immense. Preliminary economic assessments indicate significantly higher transport costs for coastal industries, loss of port throughput running into millions of tonnes annually, and erosion of revenue for both state and central governments. A critical economic corridor has been allowed to decay, dragging down the development prospects of an entire region.

What is the way forward? Not more petitions, which have achieved nothing. The answer lies in coordinated, assertive public action: large-scale demonstrations in Bengaluru and Delhi, symbolic rasta rokos, unified campaigns by chambers of commerce, farmers’ groups, transport unions, and coastal citizen organisations. Civil society must push for a Joint Task Force, third-party monitoring, transparent work schedules, and a time-bound completion plan.

The fight for Shiradi Ghat is not merely about a road. It is about dignity, fairness, and the fundamental right to equitable development. Coastal Karnataka deserves far more than broken promises and perpetual inconvenience — it deserves a future built on accountability, planning, and political will.