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After year-long delay, construction to resume at Ambala football stadium
The stadium, which is coming up at the War Heroes Memorial Stadium currently carries a cost of ₹ 115 crore. The cost has been revised at least twice since the contract was awarded to M/S Garg and Company in April 2017 by the public works department (buildings and roads) and the project was to be completed by April 2019.
The construction to upgrade the FIFA-approved football stadium in Ambala Cantonment is set to resume after a year-long delay caused due to various factors, including the Covid-19 pandemic and allegations of misappropriation of funds.
The stadium, which is coming up at the War Heroes Memorial Stadium currently carries a cost of ₹ 115 crore. The cost has been revised at least twice since the contract was awarded to M/S Garg and Company in April 2017 by the public works department (buildings and roads) and the project was to be completed by April 2019.
However, the project missed several deadlines due to various issues, including the pandemic, change in specifications and an alleged misappropriation of funds that ceased the construction of the stadium late last year. As the irregularities came to the fore, three officials including the then Executive Engineer (XEN) were placed under suspension.
Later, the disagreements between the PWD and the contractor reached the Punjab and Haryana high court and the cases were placed before the arbitration.
“It has taken a lot of efforts to bring such projects to my constituency and much more to get them materialised in real, for the benefit of the residents. However, the project got delayed due to several reasons. Following the deadlock, a meeting was arranged between the stakeholders and they have agreed to resume the construction, so that national-international sporting events can be organised here at the earliest,” Haryana home minister and local MLA Anil Vij told HT.
Contractor, Shashank Garg told HT that, “raw materials and labourers have been arranged. The stadium is almost 95% complete and is in its final stages. We have assured to complete the stadium construction by March 31, while the extension proposal for three other projects is pending.”
The new stadium will have an IAAF-approved synthetic track, FIFA-approved artificial football turf, central pavilion, VIP and media lounge, conference hall-cum-training room and a capacity of 3,700 spectators.
In December last year, HT highlighted how five major projects worth ₹ 261 crore, all allotted to the same contractor, were stuck in limbo. Other than the football stadium, construction of Aryabhatta Vigyan Kendra ( ₹ 36 crore), upgrading of 100-bed sub-divisional civil hospital to 200 bed ( ₹ 28.81 crore), residential accommodation for doctors and paramedical staff ( ₹ 25 crore) and state’s first homoeopathy hospital and college ( ₹ 55.85 crore) was delayed.
As per the department officials, the company had been allotted construction of over 17 projects in Ambala circle, including 10 in Ambala and 7 in Kurukshetra.
Contractor Garg said that the construction will begin at full swing by next week on all projects excluding Homoeopathy College, while the arbitration will continue.
Superintending engineer, PWD (B&R), Sultan Kaushik said the contractor has been asked to complete the pending projects and they will have full cooperation from the department.
