NHAI to finish project in a year

Nikhil Bharwaj

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, April 19

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has promised to complete the stretch falling in Jalandhar as part of the ongoing six laning of the Jalandhar-Panipat highway within a year.

The work has been lying pending for years due to the bottleneck of a boundary wall of the Army.

Today, senior officials of the NHAI, Army and district administration laid the foundation stone of the military assets which are to be constructed in place of the old structures which are to be demolished as part of the ongoing project.

The re-construction of the military assets being demolished due to the expansion of the highway is being undertaken speedily by the NHAI. The first building being constructed by it is the JCO Mess of one of the units of the Vajra Corps. A number of other structures which are being demolished will be constructed in the due course of time.

As per NHAI, Manager, Technical, Krishan Sachdev, there are around 40 Army structures which are to be demolished in a stretch between the PAP chowk and Rama Mandi chowk. Out of the 40, 16 are main structures, including garage for the HRV, garage for the LRV, garage for LI VEH, garage for 2.5 ton, garage for the ALS, washing platform, shed for recovery store, shed for the MT store, FOL dump, oil and lubricant store, elevated sentry post, guard room, hard standing, regiment store, storage and the JCO mess and club.

“The construction of the security wall by the NHAI is almost 90 per cent complete and work is in progress to complete the remaining portion. The work on the expansion of the NH-1 is likely to commence soon once the construction of the security wall and guard posts is completed by the NHAI. This will reduce the problem of traffic congestion at Rama Mandi Chowk and PAP Chowk,” Sachdev added.

The foundation stone for the reconstruction was laid today by Major General Sanjiv Bajaj, General Officer Commanding, Jalandhar Sub Area. The foundation laying ceremony was attended by a number of officials, including Brigadier RPS Sandhu, Station Commander of Jalandhar Cantonment, Kamal Kishore Yadav, Deputy Commissioner, Jalandhar, Vipin Sharma, project director, NHAI.

Notably, the six-laning project of the Jalandhar-Panipat highway had been hit in Jalandhar due to the pending issues of land acquisition. The land along the highway from parts of the city near PAP Chowk, Rama Mandi and 12 villages up to near Haveli was to be acquired by the NHAI, but it had got stuck for over two years. The work at the site could not begin till a diversion is provided to thousands of commuters along the highway, which was only possible once the boundary wall of the Army was pulled down.

‘Incomplete info given on damaged footpath’

The president of the Jai Jawan Jai Kisan party, Pankaj Mehta, has alleged that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has supplied incomplete information to him under the RTI Act sought on a footpath constructed on the highway with “poor quality material”. He said he would file an appeal with the Punjab Information Commission to seek action against the contractor who built the footpath. Mehta said, on his query to provide information regarding the damaged footpath made of “poor quality material”, the NHAI revealed that the footpath had been damaged by people in front of their properties to have an access to their places. Whenever any quality issues are noticed, action is taken by the Independent Engineer (IE), who either gets necessary rectification done or gets the work redone after getting the sub-standard work removed. About the name of the contractor, NHAI revealed that being a PPP project, Soma Isolux is the concessionaire of the project who has the right of appointing contractors for executing various works. Mehta alleged that the NHAI had supplied him incomplete information and seemed disintegrated in taking action against the contractor.