Deadline lapsed in 2021, Samalkha railway overbridge project still in limbo

Mukesh Tandon

Tribune News Service

Panipat, January 18

Hundreds of residents of various villages are forced to face a lot of problems due to the lethargic attitude of the PWD B&R Department as the construction of a railway overbridge (ROB) on Delhi-Ambala railway line near Manana village of Samalkha has been hanging fire for the last three years.

The deadline for the project worth Rs 17.39 crore ended in November 2021 but it is yet to be completed.

Now, Advocate Jugwinder Pal Singh Rathi, a resident of Manana village, has raised this issue before Deputy Commissioner Virender Singh Dahiya at Samadhan Shivir. As per available information, the PWD (B&R) allotted the Rs 17.39-crore tender for the construction and maintenance of the railway overbridge for three years, in 2019 to PS Infrabuild Private Limited.

The contractor company had started the construction work of the ROB in May 2020. As per the tender agreement, the company had to complete the work within 18 months and the deadline was November 2021.

Sources said the agency had to construct a 672.86-meter-long and 10-m-wide ROB, including 67.36 m of the Railways.

There is a railway crossing between Manana village and the NH-44. As the Delhi-Ambala railway track (is very busy, people of several nearby villages were forced to face a lot of problems during the crossing of trains. They had to wait for a long time on this railway crossing. The ROB was a long-standing demand of several villages, including Manana, Narayna, Dhodhpur and Wazirpur. Due to this, the PWD had allotted a tender five years ago but only 60 per cent of the work has been completed so far. Amit Rathi, a resident of Manana village, said that hundreds of villagers were facing inconvenience due to the negligence and lethargic attitude of the contractor and the officials of the PWD B&R.

Residents of Manana, Narayana, Khalila, Dhodhpur, Wazirpur Titana and Burshyam villages have been facing problems as the railway crossing of Manana had been closed for the last three years and the residents had to go to Panipat, Samalkha and on NH-44 for their work through the Naraina village crossing, he said. Residents had to face a long traffic jam daily, he said.

Advocate Jugwinder Pal Singh Rathi said that the PWD B&R, in reply to an RTI query, had stated that the last payment had been done to the company. The PWD had written a total of six letters to the contractor in 2021 for the delay in work, but after that, the department has neither written any letter to the contractor company nor given any warning, Rathi added. “The PWD B&R did not initiate any action against the company for delaying the work for three years, which is not possible without corruption,” alleged Advocate Rathi.