Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Thursday dedicated the Chandigarh-Kharar elevated corridor to the citizens as a New Year gift, paving the way for further economic development of the region while easing the perpetual traffic congestion along the route.
The Chief Minister termed the corridor project — from Sector-39 roundabout (CH.0+000), Chandigarh to Khanpur (CH.10+185) — as the fulfillment of a long-pending need of the people of the region.
With the opening of the third phase of the corridor on December 28, the project is now 96 percent complete, with the remaining (one side of the road at Khanpur) expected to be completed by mid January 2021.
On the occasion, Capt Amarinder congratulated the civil administration for ensuring peaceful acquisition of land and resettlement of land owners, and also appreciated the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for the expeditious completion of the project, which had been extremely delayed due to the bottlenecks created as a result of the previous Akali-BJP government in the State.
“When our Government took over, it inherited the messy legacy of the erstwhile regime, in terms of failure to divert the traffic, non-shifting of high tension wires by the Electricity Board and non-vacation of acquired structures by land owners due to non-payment of land compensation amount, along with multiple court cases and stay orders,” said the Chief Minister.
Capt Amarinder said that the Congress Government started addressing various problems, including getting Electricity Board to shift the high tension lines, ensuring payment of 99 percent compensation for acquired land, as well as vacation and razing of all 50 acquired structures.
“Efficient legal team removed the legal hurdles and got the stay orders vacated, while deployment of special police teams under eight Marshalls was also ensured for traffic diversion,” he added.
To enable the work to continue during the COVID lockdown, special arrangements were made for labourers at the site, said the Chief Minister.
Notably, the project was started on June 9, 2016, and the first phase from Sector-39 roundabout-Verka Chowk to Balongi Underpass was opened to the public on September 25, 2020; the second phase of Flyover (Desu Majra to Khanpur) towards Ludhiana on December 12, 2020, followed by the third phase from Daun to Desumajra on December 28, 2020.
The Chief Minister, in an informal interaction with the media later, thanked the Union Minister Nitin Gadkari for undertaking this national highway project in Punjab.
To a question about other such national highway projects, Capt Amarinder said that Katra-Delhi 16-lane expressway and other projects were in the pipeline with land acquisition process underway. He also said that Rs 27 crore had been sanctioned for the state highway project at Landran.