7 yrs on, road widening work still incomplete

Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Muktsar, December 13

It’s been more than two years since toll plaza started on the Muktsar-Kotkapura National Highway at Warring village here, but the road widening work is yet to complete.

Two bridges on twin Sirhind feeder and Rajasthan feeder canals are yet to be built.

The toll plaza was inaugurated amid protests in September 2017. The then Deputy Chief Minister, Sukhbir Singh Badal, laid the foundation stone of the road widening project in August 2012. The widening work on the 30-km stretch of highway from 7 to 10 metres was awarded to a Mumbai-based private construction company through a tendering process under the Design, Built, Finance, Operate and Transfer (DBFOT) Scheme.

The road holds significance, as it links Muktsar to Kotkapura, Faridkot, Moga, Ludhiana, Chandigarh and some other major towns.

In the past, few people have even lost their lives on the road, including a 52-year-old man of Warring village, who fell into an open drainage line along the road in June 2018.

Satish Goyal, Executive Engineer, National Highways, PWD, Ferozepur, said, “The private company, which is running the toll plaza and had got the contract to widen the road, has run into rough weather. One toll road near Nabha has been taken over from the company by the state government. Now, we are imposing penalty on the company for causing delay in completion of the widening work of the Muktsar-Kotkapura highway. Two bridges are yet to be built here, but I can’t say by what time the company will finish the work.”

On being asked whether it was legal to charge toll without completing the road widening work, the Executive Engineer said, “The company has been charging the toll according to norms and percentage of the work done.”