Hours behind schedule: Shivakumar's packed Mangaluru visit leaves crowds waiting

Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar's official engagements in Mangaluru ran more than two hours behind schedule on Friday, leaving Congress workers, anganwadi workers and beneficiaries of the State's guarantee schemes waiting at three separate venues in the city.

Preparations were in full swing at the Kadri Manjunatha Temple from 9 a.m., the time Mr. Shivakumar was expected to arrive. Congress workers had gathered in large numbers, along with anganwadi workers, guarantee scheme beneficiaries and members of the committees that monitor the schemes. Temple priests, in special attire, waited with a kalash to welcome him.

The delay was caused by two back-to-back meetings that ran past their allotted time. Mr. Shivakumar first spent an hour with more than 20 social media influencers at a hotel located at a place in Mangaluru where Mahatma Gandhi had once stayed. He then held another hour-long meeting with department Secretaries at the Circuit House. Both sessions were part of a packed itinerary for the day, which also included the Cabinet meeting and a later engagement in Udupi district.

He arrived at the Kadri Manjunatha Temple around 11.30 a.m., about two and a half hours after the crowds had assembled. From the temple, he left with his Cabinet colleagues in a special KSRTC bus for the Circuit House. The Ministers then boarded an open-top KSTDC double-decker bus for the ride to Praja Soudha, passing through the Bhagwan Mahaveer (Pumpwell) Circle, where more people had been waiting. The open-top bus allowed the Ministers to be seen by people along the route.

The convoy reached Praja Soudha around 1 p.m., and the Cabinet meeting began shortly afterwards. The meeting had originally been scheduled for 10 a.m. Mr. Shivakumar addressed the media briefly at 4 p.m. after the meeting ended, and then left for Hebri in Udupi district for a meeting on the Kasturirangan report.

The Kasturirangan report, submitted in 2013, identified large parts of the Western Ghats as ecologically sensitive and recommended restrictions on development there. Successive State governments have sought to balance conservation with the concerns of residents. Farming and plantation communities in the Malnad and coastal districts have said the recommendations could affect their livelihoods, a concern that has shaped Karnataka's response to the report.

The guarantee schemes whose beneficiaries were waiting at the temple are the five welfare programmes run by the State government, covering subsidised electricity, free bus travel for women, a monthly cash transfer to women heads of households, foodgrain supply and unemployment assistance. Committees monitor their implementation at the local level. Anganwadi workers have separately been pressing the government on honorarium and working conditions.

Several of those gathered at the temple had been waiting for more than two hours by the time Mr. Shivakumar arrived. Officials did not issue a formal statement on the revised schedule.

The Kadri Manjunatha Temple is among Mangaluru's oldest shrines.