A committee of the Mangaluru City Corporation has chosen well-known saxophonist Kadri Gopalnath for the corporation’s first Ullal Srinivas Mallya Memorial Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award.

The award carries a purse of Rs. 1 lakh, a memento and a citation. The award will be presented during the Mangaluru City Corporation Day at the Town Hall here on December 8.

In addition, the committee has chosen three persons for the Ullal Srinivas Mallya Memorial Award for Yakshagana, Education and Sports.

They are Agari Raghurama Bhagavatha (Yakshagana); K.A. Rohini (Education) and M.R. Poovamma (Sports). Each one of them would be given away a purse of Rs. 50,000, a memento and a citation.

Announcing the awards here on Tuesday, Mayor Kavita Sanil said that the corporation has instituted the awards for the first time to recognise the contribution of those who have brought laurels to Mangaluru.

The selection committee comprised B.A. Vivek Rai, former Vice-Chancellor of Kannada University and also Karnataka State Open University; B.A. Abdul Rahman, former Vice-Chancellor, Kannur and Calicut universities, K.N. Tingalaya, former Chairman of Syndicate Bank, Rita Noronha, a social worker, and Manohar Prasad, a journalist. The Mayor is the ex-officio chairperson of the committee.

She said that the corporation would conduct a drawing competition for primary and high school students within the jurisdiction of the corporation in the forenoon on December 8. The topics would be Mangaluru International Airport; New Mangaluru Port; National Institute of Technology, Surathkal; National Highway 66 and Mangaluru-Hassan railway line.

The topics have been selected on the basis of contribution of late Mallya for their development. The venue would be the mini Town Hall. There will be three awards each in primary and high school categories. Students will have to register their names either by sending a message on WhatsApp to 9964160249 or 9113995063 before December 6.

She said that the programmes of the City Corporation Day would be conducted from 2.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m. The awards would be presented at 6.30 p.m. There would be cultural programmes before and after the award presentation. D. Veerendra Heggade, Dharmadhikari of Shree Kshetra Dharmasthala, would present the awards.

The Mayor would present a karate demonstration after the award presentation.

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) on Tuesday claimed before the High Court of Karnataka that Indian Road Congress (IRC) standards were not mandatory for construction of flyovers and the standards specified could be altered depending upon local requirement.

BBMP’s counsel made this submission before a Division Bench comprising acting Chief Justice H.G. Ramesh and Justice P.S. Dinesh Kumar during the hearing on a public interest litigation petition challenging the legality of construction of a steel flyover at Shivananda Circle in the city for various factors, including for not complying to the IRC standards.

Justifying the 4.5 m vertical clearance below the proposed flyover at the Shivananda junction, it was contended on behalf of the BBMP that a minimum vertical clearance of 5.5 m as per the IRC standards cannot be provided as the existing railway underpass nearby does not permit increasing the length of the flyover to provide 5.5 m vertical clearance and the corresponding gradient.

Meanwhile, counsel for the petitioner claimed that construction of a flyover at Shivananda Circle has no logic when the IRC standards cannot be applied keeping in mind the safety of road users, and cited a report, given by an expert on road engineering to the petitioners, in support of this claim.

However, counsel for the BBMP claimed that the flyover would not cause any hardship to road users or motorists, and added that the design of the flyover had been certified by experts from the Indian Institute of Science.

The Bench adjourned hearing till Wednesday while stating that the court was anxious to know whether allowing the flyover sans IRC standards would be in public interest or not. The court asked counsel for the BBMP and the petitioner about possibility of securing a report from an independent expert about the safety aspect of the present design of the flyover.