LPAI scales down workforce on ICP construction project

Strap: Decision comes in the wake of removal of Nov 9 deadline

Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Dera Baba Nanak, January 3

The Land Ports Authority of India (LPAI), a Central Government agency, tasked with the construction of the state-of-the-art Integrated Check Post (ICP), has scaled down its workforce substantially even as space for parking vehicles remains a problem.

In the run up to the corridor’s inauguration on November 9, nearly a thousand labourers, who were assigned with the challenge of completing the ICP, worked round the clock. However, a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the project to the general public, the LPAI pulled back its workforce and now, merely 100 workers can been seen at the construction site.

“The LPAI had to meet the November 9 deadline because none other than the Prime Minister was to inaugurate the corridor. However, the Mumbai-based construction firm, Shapoorji Pallonji Engineering and Construction, which has been given the task of ICP’s construction by the LPAI, whittled down the workforce because it has no deadline to meet now,” said an official.

The corridor comprises of two parts—the ICP and a 4.5-km stretch of road originating from the T-point on the Gurdaspur-Dera Baba Nanak road.

Officials are struggling to find adequate parking space. Presently, there is space for just 200 vehicles, including 20 buses. However, there is a lurking fear that if the number of devotees increase to 5,000 per day, more than a thousand vehicles will have to be parked, for which, there is no room.

During the construction phase, ‘Darshan Sthall’, a raised platform on which the BSF had installed binoculars, was demolished by the LPAI. However, with the agency showing reluctance to get it reconstructed, pilgrims had a harrowing time in viewing the Kartarpur shrine with naked eyes.

Keeping in view the problems being faced by the devotees, Ceigall India Limited, a Ludhiana-based firm, engaged by the NHAI to construct the corridor road, decided to redo the ‘Darshan Sthall’. Hundreds of people visit the area everyday to get a glimpse of the shrine.

Meanwhile, consensus among the pilgrims is that inside the IPC, there should be some stalls serving refreshments.

“In the last two days, we have travelled all the way from Maharashtra in trains and taxis. Given how hungry and thirsty we were, we thought we would get some refreshments in the ICP. However, we were taken aback when we came to know that there was no provision for refreshments. We visited the Kartarpur shrine with an empty stomach,” said a pilgrim.

Cabinet Minister and local MLA Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, who was the Punjab Government’s nominee to oversee the construction phase, said he would write to the LPAI, urging it to establish an eatery inside the ICP. “The grievance of devotees is genuine. People coming from far-away places feel tired by the time they reach the corridor. They need something to satiate their hunger. An eatery is indeed the need of the hour,” he said.