Another stretch to be ready by Dec 13

Sanjay Bumbroo

Tribune News Service

Mohali, December 10

The second phase of the 4.5-km-long Mohali-Kharar flyover connecting Ludhiana will be thrown open to public on December 13.

Kharar SDM Himanshu Jain, the police, member of the road safety committee and officials of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) carried out a joint inspection of the project and took stock of the safety measures this evening.

The SDM said even though a section of the flyover connecting the Ludhiana road was to be opened on December 15, they had given December 10 as the deadline to the NHAI to complete this stretch of the flyover. He said they had identified small points on the flyover, which needed immediate attention, and ordered the NHAI to carry out these to make the elevated road safe for commuters. He hoped that the section of the flyover would be finally completed soon and thrown open to the public by December 12 or 13.

After missing six deadlines in a row for two years, the NHAI is poised to throw open the Mohali-Kharar flyover by January 15, which will give a much-needed respite to commuters.

A 1-km stretch starting from Balongi (called the Balongi flyover) of the much delayed project was started a month ago.

It is pertinent to mention here that the deadline for the completion of the flyover was September this year but the work on the project was delayed due to the lockdown. The work resumed after the district administration gave approval for starting the work on April 19. However, the NHAI faced a shortage of staff as most of the skilled labour had returned to their native places.

The NHAI had handed over the Rs368-crore project to Larsen and Toubro (L&T), which began the construction of the flyover in November 2015. Initially, the project was to be completed by December 2018. From delay in land acquisition to other administrative hurdles and mostly recently, workforce issues amid the pandemic were the main reasons for the delay.