Shimla Mayor, Dy Mayor meet WB team tomorrow

Bhanu P Lohumi

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Tribune News Service

Shimla, February 17

Shimla Mayor Sanjay Chauhan and Deputy Mayor Tikender Singh Panwar will meet World Bank officials in New Delhi on February 19 for funding of the comprehensive mobility plan for Shimla, estimated to cost Rs 6,000 crore. They will also hold discussions with World Bank Group President Dr Jim Yong Kim.

The plan was broadly discussed with the World Bank team that visited Shimla early this month. The World Bank team invited the Mayor and Deputy Mayor for detailed discussions in Delhi on February 19.

The Deputy Mayor said they would discuss the proposals with the World Bank officials and later a detailed project report would be submitted to the Union Ministry of Economic Affairs for approval and a follow-up action. The proposal envisages construction of traffic tunnels, ropeways and widening of pedestrian paths to reduce traffic congestion in Shimla.

The World Bank normally sanctions projects with investment up to $500 million and stress would be on the approval for ropeways and traffic tunnels for which the World Bank team has shown inclination, Panwar said.

“The World Bank team was impressed with the presentation given by the MC and it invited us for discussions,” Panwar said. Two traffic tunnels to be taken on priority are Lift-Himfed petrol station (1,100 metres) and Lift-Rivoli (600 mts) costing around Rs 600 crore.

The MC is also planning tunnels at Dhalli, Boileauganj and Tara Devi-Kamna Devi-Summer Hill ropeways in the next phase. Three tunnels — the Auckland tunnel, Lift-Rivoli-bus stand and Lift-Himfed petrol pump tunnels — were proposed under JNNURM in 2005-07 but only the Auckland tunnel was constructed while detailed survey for other two tunnels was carried out.

The then Congress MLA from Shimla Harbhajan Singh Bhajji said he had worked hard on these projects and also proposed the Jakoo-Sankat Mochan-Taradevi-Kamana Devi ropeway but it remained buried in files. The government should take up the projects for World Bank funding immediately as survey reports are already available with the government, he said.

Officials said once the World Bank agrees to fund the projects, the traffic woes of the people of Shimla would be mitigated to a large extent.