Solan four-laning makes little progress

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, February 15

The Kiratpur-Ner Chowk National Highway four-laning project is making a steady progress in spite of suspension of work following collapse of a tunnel in September 2015 and lingering conflict over land acquisition. The 84-km Kiratpur-Nerchowk project being executed under the PPP mode will have 54-km green alignment and five tunnels measuring 4,856 m will be constructed. Besides, there will be 17 major and 18 minor bridges.

The Parwanoo-Solan four-laning project is running behind schedule and only 10 per cent progress has been made so far. The highway authorities are hopeful that five-km stretch will be completed by March. As many as 7,000 trees are yet to be felled for paving the way for the speedy execution of works.

The project being executed under the EPC mode will have one major tunnel measuring 825 m, two railway over-bridges, four minor flyovers, two overpasses and one underpass.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is executing 11 projects in the state with total road length of 742 km. Out of these, works are in progress on Nerchowk–Mandi (84 km) and Parwanoo – Solan (39 km) four-laning projects. The work on the 37.3 km Kullu- Manali two-laning project commenced on February 9 last.

The process of preparation of detailed project reports for Shimla – Mataur, Chakibant- Pathankot and the Pinjaur- Baddi – Nalagarh projects has commenced.

The work has also been awarded for Nerchowk – Pandoh (Rs 873 crore) project, Takali – Kullu (Rs 328 crore) project and Kaithlighat –Dhalli (Rs 570 crore) project, while tender has been finalised for the Solan- Kaithlighat stretch of the highway.

The pace of work has accelerated after the opening of the regional office in Shimla, said General Manager, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), Himachal, Col Ram Swaroop Puri (retd)

“The survey is going on for the Nerchowk – Pandoh and Takali – Kullu projects while the survey has completed for Kaithlighat- Shimla and now the geo-tech investigations of tunnels are going on,” he added.