Northern Railway to build Rs 71 cr ROB at Doraha-Neelon crossing

Tribune News Service

Nitin Jain

Ludhiana, March 7

Finally, the Northern Railway has agreed to construct a Road Over Bridge (ROB) at Doraha-Neelon crossing on Ludhiana-Ambala rail line in Ludhiana district, officials have announced.

This much-needed and long-awaited four-lane bridge will replace the level crossing 164-A near Doraha at the cost of Rs 71-crore to remove traffic bottlenecks caused due to railway lines, the Northern Railway has said.

The development assumes significance as this was one of the few level crossings, which still existed in the state’s biggest and largest district, in terms of area and population, causing major bottlenecks to the vehicular traffic passing through the rail lines besides posing danger to the commuters.

Major infra push

We are giving a major push to upgrade and uplift the existing railway infrastructure in the state, especially Ludhiana. The work on redevelopment of the Ludhiana railway station, upgrade of Dhandari railway station and augmentation of railway infrastructure has already been approved, awarded and progressing fast. —SANJEEV ARORA, MP Rajya Sabha

Sharing details, the Rajya Sabha MP, Sanjeev Arora, told The Tribune, on Thursday that the construction to build ROB on Doraha-Neelon level crossing was hanging fire for the past long time as earlier the Public Works Department (PWD) was supposed to take up the project but kept dilly-dallying the same following which he took up the matter with the senior officials of the Northern Railway and impressed upon them to replace the level crossing with road over bridge in the larger public interest.

Expressing happiness over the approval given to the proposal, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) member in the Upper House of Parliament from Punjab said he has been apprised by the Divisional Railway Manager Ambala, Mandeep Singh Bhatia, that the proposal for four-lane ROB to replace LC-164A, near Doraha, was shortlisted in the Indian Railways Projects Sanctions and Management (IRPSM) in the year 2023-24 and was sanctioned by the Railway Board on March 1. He said the project will cost a sum of Rs 70.56 crore to the Railway.

Arora said initially, a proposal was made to construct ROB at LC-164A in the year 2011 following which in 2016, commercial operation date (COD) was given to a private construction company. Later, the company approved the design for the project under which a single track was to be constructed. But later a proposal came to construct a double track. On this, the private construction company claimed that cost of construction will increase due to increase in length of span. “Subsequently, this proposal went into cold storage and the contract of the construction company was terminated on August 5, 2021,” he revealed.

According to the project approved by the Railway Board, the ROB will be constructed under an Umbrella Scheme by the Railways at LC-164A.

Arora said, “I have been apprised by the authorities concerned that the work will commence shortly”.

He said the project will provide a great relief to the commuters on the Doraha-Neelon stretch. Presently, the commuters on this stretch were suffering a lot because of heavy rail traffic on the Ludhiana-Ambala section as most of the time the railway crossing at LC-164A remains closed for vehicular traffic.

The Rajya Sabha MP had been raising the issue since long that the railway crossings were a major hurdle in the free flow of vehicular traffic and had been demanding ROB and RUB at Doraha-Neelon crossing and Ishmeet Singh Chowk in Model Town here, respectively.

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