GMADA ignoring old Mohali: Councillors
Akash Ghai
Tribune News Service
Mohali, November 9
While the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) is busy in developing new areas in surroundings of Mohali, MC councillors are alleging that the department is ignoring development works in the old town here.
According to some Mohali councillors, there are several issues that cause trouble to localites and need to be redressed by GMADA on a priority basis, but the authorities concerned have been turning a blind eye to the problem.
“The issues included reconstruction of three old bridges — Balongi bridge, PCA stadium bridge in Phase 9 and Punjab School Education Board bridge on the road separating Phase 8 and 9 — widening of main roads, including Kumbhra road, YPS Chowk-Mohali village road and Hotel Franco-Mohali Civil Hospital road, construction of more community centres and providing space for more schools and dispensaries in the town,” Satbir Singh Dhanoa, an MC councillor, said.
The councillor said the Kumbhra road, one of the busiest stretches in the town, was very narrow, thus witnesses traffic chaos every now and then. “It’s the responsibility of GMADA to widen the road after removing encroachments on it. The area people have given a number of representations in this regard, but to no avail. It’s not only the commuters, who are being harassed due to traffic snarls, but a number of accidents also take place here for obvious reason,” Dhanoa said.
Similarly, the Hotel Franco-Civil Hospital road and YPS Chowk-Mohali village road witness huge traffic flow, thus need to be widened without any delay. “Our repeated representations, requests and applications to GMADA authorities have failed to awake them,” RP Sharma, another councilor, said.
Besides, the three bridges in question also need to be reconstructed for smooth flow of traffic. “All three bridges are bottlenecks, thus cause major disruption to traffic flow on the roads. There is an urgent need to reconstruct new bridges,” Sahibee Anand, MC councilor, said.
The councillors said in its first notification in August 1969the PUDA had mentioned that every sector/phase of the town would have a government school, a dispensary, a community centre and a market with sufficient parking space. “The authorities did not keep their promise and now they are also ignoring the development works in the old town,” the councillors rued.
Meanwhile, Girish Dayalan, who has been given the additional charge of Chief Administrator of GMADA, said he would soon look into all such matters and do the needful.
