Will ask Punjab to expedite Nangal railway overbridge project: Dy CM
Lalit Mohan
Dharamsala, August 5
The Himachal Government would take up with the Punjab Government and the Union Ministry for Road Transport the issue of delay in the construction of a railway overbridge in Nangal town.
Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri visited the under-construction bridge yesterday evening. Talking to The Tribune, he said thousands of Una, Hamirpur and Kangra residents are caught in long traffic jams while crossing the Nangal Dam bridge.
Patients worst sufferers
Patients are the worst sufferers. I visited the area on Friday and found that no traffic police official was deployed by the local administration to regulate traffic at the bridge. This shows the callous attitude of the Punjab Government towards the people’s plight. —Mukesh Agnihotri, Deputy Chief Minister
He said the construction of the bridge had been going on for the past eight years and people were suffering. He said thousands of commuters and patients going to Chandigarh from Himachal had to cross the Nangal Dam bridge. Due to the under-construction railway overbridge, people got trapped in traffic jams on that bridge, he added.
“Patients are the worst sufferers. I visited the area yesterday and found that no traffic police official was deployed at the bridge by the local administration to regulate traffic. This shows the callous attitude of the Punjab Government towards the people’s plight,” he said.
Agnihotri said he would be meeting the Punjab authorities and the Union Ministry for Surface Transport to get the construction of the railway overbridge expedited. People of Himachal were being denied smooth road access to Chandigarh and Delhi for the past eight years, he said.
Incomplete bridge in Nangal town of Punjab, located about 6 km from the Himachal border, had become a nightmare for commuters coming in or going out of Himachal from the Mehatpur border of Una district.
The two-lane Nangal Dam bridge connects Punjab with Himachal via the Una-Chandigarh road. More than 60-year-old bridge cannot accommodate the increasing vehicular traffic. Due to this reason, the area witnesses long traffic jams.
The national highways department sanctioned a bridge over the Sutlej at Nangal to put in place an alternative to the Nangal Dam bridge. As per data collected by The Tribune, the first 400 m railway overbridge was to be constructed at a cost of Rs 82.77 crore. Its construction work was started in June 2018 and it was scheduled to be completed by June 2020.
