Relief for sports industry as wait for NH 4-laning ends

Rachna Khaira

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, June 27

Ending the three-year-long controversy over the four-laning of the National Highway 703-A, connecting Jalandhar with Kapurthala, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has approved the project and asked the Public Works Department (PWD), National Highways (NH), to submit a detailed project report on the same.

The move will provide a huge respite to the sports and leather goods industry of Jalandhar as the delay has reported a 40 per cent dip in the exports from the Doaba region in the last three years.

Gursewak Singh, Executive Engineer, PWD, Jalandhar, said the department had received a letter from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in November last year asking it to prepare a detailed project report (DPR) on the four-laning of NH 703-A and it was soon going to submit the same to the ministry.

“According to the report, the 56.48-km road will be constructed between the 4.4 km and 60.88 km-stretch on the way from Jalandhar to Kapurthala. The project will be completed at an estimated cost of Rs 5.13 crore,” said Gursewak Singh. He, however, said the ministry would decide only after receiving the DPR whether the elevated road would be constructed or the four-laning would be done. He also informed that it might take two to three years to complete the project.

Initiated by Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal, the elevated project was drawn into a huge controversy ever since he laid its foundation stone in 2014. The project, which was to be built under the 80:20 grant scheme of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission of the Union government, could not take off due to non-release of funds by the state government.

The project was later changed into four-laning at the behest of area residents. The project also remained suspended for over a year due to the laying of the sewerage line by the Municipal Corporation of Jalandhar (MCJ). Meanwhile, the validity of the tender floated by the Jalandhar Improvement Trust (JIT) for Rs 55 crore too got expired.

However, to save the face of the ruling alliance, the MCJ recently prepared an estimate of around Rs 8.5 crore and got it approved by the District Urban Infrastructure Committee.

However, as the road was already declared as NH 703A by the Highway Ministry and the project was supposed to be taken over by the state PWD (NH) under funds to be released by the Union government, Maj Gen VK Bhatt, technical adviser to Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal, finally asked the MCJ to approach the PWD for the four-laning project.