In an attempt to deal with the problem of traffic congestion in the city, the UT Administration on Friday suggested the neighboring State Governments of Punjab and Haryana to come up with a joint futuristic vision document that addresses the need of tricity including Chandigarh and its satellite townships of Mohali and Panchkula.
After a gap of three years, a high level meeting was held here on issues of tricity transportation and urban planning under the chairmanship of Manoj Parida, Adviser to the UT Administrator with the Principal Secretary (Transport), Punjab, Secretary (Local Government) Punjab, Town Planners of Punjab, Haryana and officers from GMADA, HUDA, HSVP, HHRTC among other officers on Friday.
During the meeting, the UT Administration proposed preparing a holistic plan for regional mobility keeping in view all the aspects of urban planning, transport, engineering feasibility and the common policy denominator.
“Mass Rapid Transport System (MRTS) was the main focus of the meeting and other systems i.e. Bus System, Public Bike Sharing (PBS) and E-Rickshaws were also discussed. Discussion was held on finalizing the planning of MRTS and it was suggested that a common transport corporation (Greater Chandigarh Transport Corporation) shall be created after identifying the feasibility of all the three Governments,” said a senior officer of Chandigarh Administration.
Earlier, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed in 2015 by the Governments of Haryana, Punjab and Chandigarh for the formation of Greater Chandigarh Transport Corporation (GCTC) for implementation of tricity metro project. However, due to objections raised by Chandigarh MP Kirron Kher, the project was scrapped later.
The metro project costing more than Rs 10000 crore had proposed to link Chandigarh with satellite townships of Panchkula and Mohali and under this, a total of 37.573 km metro rail project was proposed including 23.468 km elevated and 14.105 km underground in the first phase having two metro corridors namely north-south corridor and east-west corridor.
The officers of Punjab and Haryana were apprised about the current status of metro and monorail projects, being explored by the Administration to ease the traffic congestion.
The UT officer said that Chandigarh Administration has requested both the states to address the issues at the interstate level. Status of inner and outer ring road as part of the notified regional plan was also updated for expeditious implementation which mainly lies between Punjab and Haryana. For seamless connectivity of the region, Chandigarh Administration is working on PR-4, PR-5 roads in UT area (connecting Madhya Marg, Dakshin Marg and Vikas Marg with the Punjab boundary towards Mullanpur), he said.
Notably, as per a study of the daily (24 hours) traffic at the outer cordon points, about 1,52,650 vehicles enter or leave Chandigarh on a typical working day. Madhya Marg is the worst affected road since it provides the shortest and most direct connection between the satellite townships of Chandigarh.
A ring road was planned to provide an alternative route for these vehicles in transit but the ground work is yet to begin in this regard.
During the meeting, it was informed that the last Reciprocal Transport Agreement was done in the year 2008 between UT Chandigarh and state of Punjab, and the new draft agreement will be done shortly. The officers of Haryana have also shown positive interest in engaging in the Reciprocal Transport Agreement.
The State Transport Commissioner, Punjab, the Additional Transport Commissioner, Haryana and the Additional Secretary Transport, Chandigarh Administration has been appointed as nodal officer for this purpose by the respective states.
It was decided that areas should be identified and documented where there is a need for coordinated planning and development and working groups can be constituted on various issues between the three governments. Apart from this, issues of new dumping ground, water supply and storm water drainage were also discussed.