Slow pace of construction leaves residents agitated
Manmeet Singh Gill
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, June 11
Shopkeepers and traders at the Katra Sher Singh area are a harried lot as they complained that even after two weeks of digging of roads to lay sewer lines, the construction work at the site had not started.
Shopkeepers said the roadsides were dug on both the sides on May 18 and 19. “Since then, the workers involved in the construction have rarely come here. As this is a commercial area, the work should have been completed with speed,” said Jagtar Singh, a shopkeeper. They complained there was hardly any space left for the movement of vehicles.
Another shopkeeper, Navdeep Singh, said due to ditches in the road, vehicles could not enter the area. “The slow speed of work has affected our businesses and people do not come to the market,” he said, complaining the heavy machinery and construction material had been dumped on the road to make conditions worse.
The shopkeepers said people preferred to go to markets where they could park their vehicles. They accused the contractor of not planning in advance which had resulted in the situation.
They demanded that the local administration must ensure that ditches were dug in only those areas where construction work was to be immediately undertaken. “We could have comfortably done our business if the road was dug when the contractor was ready to initiate the work here,” said another shopkeeper.
As the construction work is also going on the road leading from Town hall to Pink plaza which is used by people after coming back from the Golden Temple, frequent traffic jams were witnessed in the area. The shopkeepers stated that instead of scattering workforce on various sites, the work should be completed on one stretch so that people did not have to face any problem.
