mangalore after 12 years four blueprints and three foundation stones later the rangamandira theatre for fine arts project is again in news the third and the last foundation stone was laid by former chief minister b s yeddyurappa at bondel in august 2010 but by the way things are going it seems that site is also not a final one district in charge minister b ramanath rai said there is a problem near the entrance to that site which will become a major issue after the construction of rangamandira we will search for an alternative site if the attempt does not yield the desired result within a fortnight we will start the construction at the bondel site itself we dont want to delay the project further incidentally rai had laid the first foundation stone at kadri deer park on rajyotsava day in 2001 when he was the district in charge minister regarding that site rai said it was with the horticulture department and there was some issue regarding the transfer of the site to the project if the problem does not get solved we will be back to bondel he said dakshina kannada district kannada sahitya parishat president pradeep kumar kalkura said the delay has seen costs escalating from a mere rs 5 crore to now rs 15 crore if the project was broken down into smaller components at least we would have had something by now work could have been started on the open air auditorium first and then things could have gone further last year the cost of rangamandira was pegged at rs 15 to rs 16 crore he said the project has been suffering from one malaise after another and the first committee constituted for this purpose has already celebrated its silver jubilee of existence the conceptualization of a rangamandira here started in the mid 1980s when the state government proposed to construct it in the districts for the promotion of language folk art and culture during the world kannada convention at mysore initially three places were identified for the fine arts theatre near mangala stadium and wenlock hospital and urwa but had to be rejected following public protests that they were needed for other developmental activities finally kadri deer park was selected and after the animals were shifted to pilikula again the deer park site was changed to bondel saying it was not spacious to house allied projects like buildings to house the offices of the beary konkani and tulu academies the present land belongs to the public works department pwd