By P.T. Bopanna
When Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah visited Kodagu (Coorg) in January, he was accorded an unprecedented welcome. Virajpet MLA A.S. Ponnanna went out of his way to extend the legendary hospitality of the Kodavas (Coorgs) to Siddaramaiah.
Ponnanna, legal advisor to chief minister with a Cabinet rank, did not bother about protocol and drove the vehicle himself carrying the chief minister. He did not stop with that. He personally served food to the chief minister. This trait of personal attention to a guest is ingrained in the Kodavas. Coorg has become the homestay capital of India because of the hospitality Kodavas offer to their guests.
With the kind of bonhomie that Ponnanna enjoys with Siddaramaiah, it was expected that the chief minister would allocate adequate funds to Kodagu, which has been neglected by successive governments. The hill district of Kodagu which was once a separate Part ‘C’ Coorg State before its merger with Karnataka in 1956, has just two MLAs and politically insignificant. So invariably a raw deal is meted out.
Though Kodagu is a major producer of Coffee and generates a lot of revenue from tourism, successive Karnataka governments have failed to plough back the funds to develop infrastructure. The same way Siddaramaiah now complains that Modi government is giving peanuts as Karnataka’s share out of the huge taxes collected from the state.
The residents of Kodagu have been demanding a multi-specialty hospital for many years. Power supply in the district is in a shambles. The roads to tourist spots visited by lakhs of people are in a bad shape.
Instead of a specialty hospital, provision has been made in the budget for installing diagnostic equipment at Kodagu Institute of Medical Sciences. The other budgetary provisions made in the budget are not worth mentioning.
The saddest part is the opposition BJP in Kodagu has gone into a deep slumber after the shock defeat of its MLAs in the last Assembly election. They are hardly protesting against the lack of allocation of funds in the budget.
Photo courtesy: Kodagu Live
