Chandigarh mulls constructing tunnel to cut travel time to airport

Dushyant Singh Pundir

Chandigarh, April 23

In order to reduce travel time, the UT Administration is mulling over the construction of a tunnel as a shorter and better route to the international airport.

To drastically cut the travel distance, UT Adviser Dharam Pal said they had finalised two options for an alternative shorter route to the international airport from the Sector 48 side.

He said the first option would be the construction of a road from junction 63 (the T-point intersection on the Vikas Marg from Tribune Chowk) to the airport via Faidan village for which they had to construct a tunnel on the way which would connect to the airport road in Mohali. It would be a shorter and better route to reach the airport from Chandigarh, he said.

Dharam Pal said the second option would be the construction of a road from the Sector 48 side which would pass through the villages of Faidan and Jagatpura and connect to the airport road along the boundary of the airport. However, as there will be two blind turns of 90 degrees on this route it was not advisable for the safety of commuters and also it would be a little longer than the tunnel route.

For the construction of the tunnel, the Adviser said they had to hold meetings with the Defence and Aviation Ministries and only after getting approval from the Central Government, work on the tunnel could be started. Sources said the UT Administration would hold talks with the Punjab Government for the acquisition of land that falls in Jagatpura village for the construction of a wide road.

The Adviser had in December last year directed the DC and the UT Chief Engineer to prepare a report on alternative shorter routes to the international airport.

To reduce the road distance, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had recently decided to conduct a feasibility study on the connectivity to the airport from the Purv Marg side near Sector 48.

In its earlier recommendations, the committee had stated that it was aware that a short approach road towards the airport was functional in the past. “But now, around 30 km extra need to be covered as the entry has been shifted to the other side,” said the panel. In response to the recommendations of the committee, the MHA submitted that three alternative approaches were suggested in the Chandigarh Master Plan, 2031. These alternatives were discussed at various meetings which failed to reach a conclusion.

The plan under consideration

UT Adviser Dharam Pal said the first option would be the construction of a road from Junction 63 (the T-point intersection on the Vikas Marg from Tribune Chowk) to the airport via Faidan village for which they had to construct a tunnel on the way which would connect to the airport road in Mohali. It would be a shorter and better route to reach the airport.