New Delhi, May 4
Decks were cleared today for Rs 3035-crore Inter-city transit projects comprising a network of four and six-lanned expressways in Punjab.

The Centre gave clearance to the expeditious completion of the six-lanned expressway to link Chandigarh with Ludhiana and four-lanned highways for Ludhiana-Moga-Ferozepore and Chandigarh -Ropar-Kiratpur Sahib segments.

In addition, the Centre gave a commitment to “actively pursue” the four-lanned highway project for the Chandigarh-Patiala-Sangrur-Bathinda route.

All these road projects would be completed in the mode of national highways and would completely transform inter-city transport in the state.

These decisions were taken at a high-level meeting between union minister of shipping, road transport and national highways T.R. Baalu and Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal here.

Besides super-expressways, the Centre also agreed to expedite the completion of 16 railway over bridges to decongest traffic in the state.

Baalu permitted the state government to execute construction work of four lanning of the Desumajra-Kurali (17 km) stretch at an estimated cost of Rs 15 crore. The funds for this project would be provided by the ministry.

Similarly, the union minister also directed the national highway authority of India (NHAI) to complete the four-lanning of the 20 km-stretch from the Bidhipur railway station, Jalandhar, to Dhilwan on national highway-1 (Jalandhar-Amritsar) on a priority basis.

The Chief Minister urged the union minister to accord administrative and financial approval for the construction of Damoria railway overbridge at Jalandhar to honour the commitment of former Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral.

He said the Rs 26.11-crore project was sanctioned in 2001 cost of which was to be shared by the ministry (Rs 20.78 crore) and the Railways (5.33 crore). The ministry had not released any amount whereas the Railways had released only Rs 2 crore for the project.

The Chief Minister requested Baalu to immediately release the committed amount of Rs 20.78 crore for the project that was likely to be completed by June, 2007.

The Centre also agreed to extend the Ludhiana-Moga-Talwandi Bhai national highway project by an additional 25 km to take it up to Ferozepore.

The union minister informed the Chief Minister that the detailed project report had been completed and the work was likely to be commissioned by October 2007. He said the survey on the four-lanning of the Chandigarh-Patiala-Sangrur-Bathinda (209 km) project would be carried out.

Meanwhile, Punjab may get an additional Rs 100 crore for 2007-08 to boost rural education.

A spokesman for the Punjab government said here today that the issue was raised by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal during his meeting with deputy chairman, planning commission of India Montek Singh Ahluwalia here.

Ahluwalia “responded positively” to the proposal and said new school infrastructure should be based on partial subsidisation pattern.