Katra expressway: To push for land acquisition, Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann to meet farmers

Rajmeet Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 5

Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann will directly interact with farmers protesting against the acquisition of land for the Delhi-Amritsar-Katra expressway. The delay in acquisition of pockets of land in Ludhiana, Tarn Taran, Gurdaspur and Amritsar districts has affected the pace of the completion of the expressway.

After being pulled up by the Centre for the delay, the CM has decided to meet farmers in small groups so that an early solution can be worked out, said sources in the government.

Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari taking note of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) projects getting stalled due to farmer protests in Punjab was highlighted in these columns.

A senior functionary in the Public Works Department (PWD) said though a majority of the land for the expressway had been acquired, pockets of land measuring near 100 acres in four districts were yet to be acquired and that was hampering the progress of the expressway.

The NHAI has been flagging that farmer protests had been delaying land acquisition, leading to withdrawal of major infrastructure projects in the agrarian state. “We hope that direct talks with the affected landowners would work out some solution,” said the functionary.

Of the total 650-km-long expressway, 361 km proposed length falls in Punjab.