Parking slots to come up on both sides of elevated road

Tribune News Service

Nitin Jain

Ludhiana, June 9

In what would give a major reprieve to the local residents and the visitors, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has assured to construct parking slots on both sides of the under-construction elevated highway in Ludhiana.

An assurance to this effect was given by the NHAI chairman, Santosh Kumar Yadav, to Rajya Sabha MP from Ludhiana, Sanjeev Arora.

Arora, who called on Yadav at his office in New Delhi recently, told The Tribune, here on Friday that he submitted a report prepared by the NHAI Project Director to the NHAI chairman, wherein it was planned that around 750 vehicles can be parked between the service road and main carriage along the elevated road.

He impressed upon Yadav that provision of parking slots was much needed as there were commercial establishments on both sides of the road.

He urged the NHAI chairman to grant approval to the plan so that parking slots can be made to avoid any traffic chaos along the upcoming elevated highway in the Maximum City.

Arora appreciated NHAI for constructing an elevated road in Ludhiana city. He apprised the NHAI chairman that there was some delay in the ongoing work, for which he requested him to direct the field officials concerned to complete the work at the earliest and take up the traffic issues being faced by the local residents due to construction, which needs to be resolved at the earliest possible.

During his meeting, Rajya Sabha MP lauded the way NHAI infrastructure work was going on in Punjab and particularly Ludhiana.

He pointed out that there was a lot of industry in and around the city. Also, industrial parks were coming up under the PM Gati Shakti scheme. He requested the NHAI chairman to connect all industrial clusters with National Highways by constructing spurs at all the feasible sites.

He apprised NHAI chairman Yadav that NHAI field officials were aware of this issue, which had also been brought up and discussed at the level of district administration.

Arora also spoke to the NHAI Regional Officer Vipnesh Sharma, apprising him of his meeting with NHAI chairman. Sharma also assured him of all the possible support from his end.

The MP said his meeting with the NHAI chairman was very constructive with assurance on all these issues. Pertinently, the much-awaited partially-access controlled four to six-lane elevated highway corridor in Ludhiana is set to miss another deadline of June 30.

With almost 92 per cent of the work already done, this Rs 756.27-crore Central project is scheduled to be ready by July end.

Arora showed his displeasure when the NHAI officials had apprised him that the completion of elevated road may be delayed by another four to six weeks.

The development assumes significance as the work on one of the busiest arteries of the Maximum City had already missed a deadline of completion in April 2020. Started in October 2017, the construction of a 12.95-km-long stretch between the busy Samrala chowk and Ludhiana municipal limits on National Highway-95, would now miss another deadline of June as well.

The NHAI officials had assured Rajya Sabha MP that by the end of June, all ramps will be completed. However, there will be a delay in joining the ISBT road and Jagraon bridge.

Arora had categorically asked the NHAI officials to complete the pending work of elevated road at the earliest so that the people could not face any kind of inconvenience due to traffic bottlenecks caused by the ongoing construction work.

The Rajya Sabha MP had been informed by the officials that there would be four slip roads — one each near Verka Plant, PAU, Bhai Bala Chowk, and Hotel Park Plaza — on the elevated highway. There would also be a provision for vehicular traffic to move towards the bus stand and Shri Durga Mata Mandir.

The under-construction elevated highway will provide uninterrupted flow of traffic to several government offices, including Mini Secretariat, Commissioner of Police office, head post office and major business establishments.