Narrow link road causes traffic bottlenecks

Nikhila Pant Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, November 20

The flyover constructed at the Rose Garden Chowk may have eased the flow of traffic between the chowk and Barnala road but has led to traffic bottlenecks on the link roads on either side.

The link roads could have been wider but for the encroachment by shopkeepers.

As making the shopkeepers vacate the shops or their demolition may be delayed, the Central Works Department has now decided to make some changes in the project layout for widening of the road.

The problem of traffic snarls gets aggravated in the evening hours when customers visiting these shops park their vehicles by the roadside.

“Although the land belongs to the Improvement Trust, it has been under encroachment for decades now. The encroachers have further lent these out on rent. The shopkeepers protested against the state government’s acquisition plan and approached the court. The case is now pending with the Supreme Court of India,” said a senior official of the Improvement Trust.

“The case is pending in the court and since the decision may take some time, we have figured a way out. We have made some changes in the project map and would soon be initiating work to widen the link roads. Anyway, the width of the link roads is subject to availability of land. The link roads, on which traffic moves in only one direction, may be 4.5 to 7 m wide. The existing link roads are more than 5 m wide,” said Central Works SDO Hamesh Mittal.

Mittal added that the work would have begun by now but smog cover halted it.

“We lost precious two-three weeks due to inclement weather. We have written to the district administration for police protection in case we face resistance or any kind of protest from the shopkeepers and are hopeful of beginning the work soon,” he said.

Meanwhile, shopkeepers of the Nehar market, as it is popularly called, are demanding that the state government must construct and give them shops in case it wishes to demolish the present ones.

Shopkeepers Munish Kumar, Aashi Kumar and others said the shops had been the only source of income for their families for the past several decades and construction of a flyover had hit their earning.

“If the government wants us to vacate the land, it should construct shops on the nearby Improvement Trust land and officially allot these to us. The construction of elevated link roads at the doorstep of our shops has affected our businesses adversely. We want compensation,” they added.