Panipat-Jalandhar highway project hangs fire as deadline draws near

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 28

There is little respite for hundreds of thousands of commuters who travel on the busy Panipat-Jalandhar stretch of the National Highway No. 1, with the project concessionaire seeking another eight months from the Supreme Court to finish the work of six-laning the 291-km stretch of the highway. With just three days to go for the deadline set by the apex court for the completion of the highway work, 40 km of the main carriageway is yet to be six-laned and 28 underpasses yet to be constructed, both in Punjab and Haryana.

Citing untimely rains earlier this month and poor availability of construction material (sand and gravel) in Punjab, the consortium, Soma-Isolux NH1 Tollway Private Limited, has now moved the apex court again, seeking deadline extension till November this year.

Officials in the National Highway Authority of India told The Tribune that the consortium had already filed an application in the Supreme Court in that regard. “Almost 85 per cent of the work on the project is now complete. Of the 291.1 km of the highway that is being six-laned, work has been completed on almost 250 km. As many as 176 structures (bridges, passenger underpasses and vehicular underpasses) were to be built on the highway, of which only 150 are complete. Some underpasses in Karnal, Pipli, Neelokheri, Shahabad and Ambala are expected to be operational within a fortnight,” said a senior NHAI official. However, information available with The Tribune shows that even the main carriageway has been completed in bits and pieces, especially in the portion that runs through the state. The elevated road over Sirhind town, Khanna and in the Samrala bypass area of Ludhiana is yet to be completed.

Work on underpasses in Phagwara has not resumed for some weeks now, after a senior minister from the area objected to less than desired underpasses being made on the elevated road. As a result, instead of a smooth and hassle-free ride that commuters have been waiting for on the highway, they continue to suffer traffic snarls and a bumpy ride because of potholed diversions.

Interestingly, the NHAI, upon intervention of the Supreme Court, had allowed the consortium to relocate two of its three toll plazas. The consortium had built three toll plazas, at Karnal, Shambhu and Ladowal (Ludhiana), of which the Karnal and Shambhu toll barriers have been allowed to shift in order to help the consortium avoid slippages by commuters. Before the toll plazas were shifted, the consortium was reported collecting an average of Rs 25 crore as toll per month. This has now increased to Rs 33 crore per month (on average).