Chandigarh, July 23
“Chandigarh is the capital of Punjab. No other state can claim a right over the city as its capital. Historically, whenever a new state is carved out of a large state, the capital always remains with the original state,” says Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab, Sukhbir Singh Badal.

Countering Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on the issue of creating New Chandigarh in the vicinity of the City Beautiful, Badal says since Chandigarh belongs to Punjab, it is the responsibility of the Punjab Government to ensure that the beauty and heritage value of the city is not lost.

“Chandigarh belongs to Punjab — a fact also agreed upon in the Rajiv Longowal Accord. The Punjab Government is well within its rights to create a New Chandigarh in order to preserve Chandigarh’s beauty and at the same time create an alternative planned city for people working and living in Chandigarh,” Badal said in an exclusive interview to The Tribune.

“If Delhi can have a New Delhi and Mumbai can have Navi Mumbai, why can’t Chandigarh have a New Chandigarh, especially as the latter is being developed after rectifying the flaws existing in the original city,” he argues. “In fact, Punjab is now creating several such planned futuristic urban pockets in the vicinity of all major cities in the state,” says Sukhbir.

Hooda, in an interview to The Tribune, had objected to the development of Mullanpur as New Chandigarh. He had raked up the politically controversial issue of transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab, by saying that Haryana had no objection to Punjab developing Mullanpur as New Chandigarh, if it was ready to let go its claim on Chandigarh as its capital. Since the Rajiv Longowal Accord has not been implemented, Chandigarh continues to be the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana.

“Till the issues remain unresolved, we (Haryana) will continue to defend whatever is ours,” Hooda had said.

Sukhbir justified his government’s stand on going ahead with “ planned development” in the periphery of Chandigarh by coming out with a master plan for urbanisation of the area.

“Chandigarh has come under extreme population pressure and the city’s infrastructure cannot support it. In order to ensure that Chandigarh does not lose its aesthetic and heritage value, we have conceived New Chandigarh and we are developing it in a planned manner, with world class infrastructure and low population density, so that it is in sync with the architecture of Chandigarh,” he says.

The Punjab DyCM said the development had to take its natural course towards Mullanpur, especially after the establishment of Baddi as a major industrial hub.

“Punjab has rather taken a proactive step by deciding to come up with planned development here, and ensure that this area is not developed in pockets and thus becomes an urban slum. Look at what happened in Zirakpur and Nayagaon, which stand as ugly scars surrounding the City Beautiful,” says Sukbir.

“The new city is being conceived after taking into account the population pressure and after ensuring that it becomes a self-sustaining unit. The need for water and power has been taken into account and we are ensuring that these needs are met, even before the entire population conceived for New Chandigarh moves in,” he asserts.

Quizzed about the change in stand of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on New Chandigarh, Sukhbir, who is also the SAD chief, says that creating a New Chandigarh was the need of the hour.

“The party was opposed to New Chandigarh in 1995, when Chandigarh’s population was quite less and there was need to first ensure development of the city. But now Chandigarh has reached a saturation point, and it is the responsibility of Punjab Government to ensure planned development and offer facilities to people who are working here. Moreover, we were objecting to New Chandigarh in 1995, because we felt that the farmers in Mullanpur would be uprooted after their agricultural lands were acquired. Now, we have come out with a land pooling scheme, which has helped farmers get residential plots and commercial sites, and thus ensured that they are not uprooted,” he said.