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Chandigarh-Kharar highway project: NHAI to open second stretch of flyover by November 15
The project, which entails widening of the road between Balongi and Kharar T-point including construction of two flyovers and three minor bridges, has been hanging fire for the past five years
With 85% work completed on the much-delayed Chandigarh-Kharar road expansion work, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) says the whole stretch will be opened to the public by end of this year.
The project, which entails widening of the road between Balongi and Kharar T-point including construction of two flyovers and three minor bridges, has been hanging fire for the past five years. The total length of the flyovers (divided into three parts) is around 10km.
After opening 1-km stretch of the flyover starting from Balongi (called the Balongi flyover) for vehicular traffic recently, now the NHAI will be opening the next stretch over the Kharar bus stand towards Ludhiana by November 15.
The ₹368-crore project being executed by Larsen & Toubro was initiated in November 2015 and has missed six deadlines, after initially poised to be completed in three years 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.
The national highway where the flyover is coming up connects Chandigarh to parts of Punjab besides Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. This leaves Kharar as a major bottleneck. About 50,000 vehicles were crossing the stretch on an average before the lockdown.
Kharar subdivisional magistrate (SDM) Himanshu Jain, who is supervising the project, said the work is going on in full swing and around 85% has been completed. “The other stretch over the Kharar bus stand will be opened by November 15,” he said, while adding that the work picked up pace amid as vehicular traffic got reduced under the flyover during the lockdown.
Meanwhile, a senior NHAI official, who did not wish to be named, said the work on stretches near Desumajra and Sunny Enclave in Kharar will also be completed as soon as the work on the Khanpur bridge is over.
Villagers block road, demand direct access
Residents of Daun and 25 nearby villages on Saturday blocked both sides of the highway, bringing the work on the elevated road from Balongi to Kharar as well as traffic to a halt. They demanded direct access to the road.
Daun sarpanch Ajmer Singh said the village has historical importance, and on every Sunday, a lot of people visit it to pay obeisance at the local gurdwara. “We have not been given a direct access to the elevated road and are forced to travel extra and take a U-turn, causing a lot of inconvenience as well as traffic jams,” he said.
The protest that started around 11am lasted for about an hour, and was lifted after the intervention of SDM Himanshu Jain, who assured the residents that he would take up the matter with NHAI.
