A day after Congress MP from Amritsar Gurjit Singh Aujla and BJP Rajya Sabha Member from Punjab Shwait Malik wrote to the Centre to raise objection over the ‘exclusion’ of Amritsar from Rs 60,000 crore Delhi-Amritsar-Katra expressway project, Punjab public works minister Vijay Inder Singla said Amritsar will be joined to the expressway.
“A spur at Kartarpur will join the Kartarpur-Amritsar section with the expressway. This section will be developed as 6-lane access controlled expressway along the existing alignment only,” the minister said. The expressway is aimed at promoting tourism by linking two major religious shrines, the Golden Temple in Amritsar and the Mata Vaishno Devi Temple in Katra of Jammu and Kashmir.
Notably, the website of the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change, shows that Amritsar district is not part of the execution plan of the project, which means the expressway bypasses the district in the alignment proposed.
To this, the minister added, “The alignment approved by Punjab and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) provides the shortest, and express, connectivity to the cities of Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Sangrur, Patiala with the National Capital as well as to UT of J&K.”