Chandigarh: Tribune Flyover work to be allotted today

The 1.6-km-long flyover is expected to ease the heavy congestion at Tribune Chowk, which handles over 1.43 lakh vehicles, including 1.35 lakh passenger cars, daily, as per original traffic projections

After remaining in limbo for over seven years, the much-delayed Tribune Chowk flyover project is finally set to move into the execution stage, with the UT engineering department scheduled to award the contract on Tuesday.

Construction is expected to begin by the end of April and be completed within two years (Keshav Singh/ HT)

Construction is expected to begin by the end of April and be completed within two years.

The 1.6-km-long flyover is expected to ease the heavy congestion at Tribune Chowk, which handles over 1.43 lakh vehicles, including 1.35 lakh passenger cars, daily, as per original traffic projections.

Ever since its conception, the project has faced multiple procedural delays. Almost eight months after the then UT administrator VP Singh Badnore laid the foundation stone for the project on March 3, 2019, work stalled as the Punjab and Haryana high court imposed a stay on the cutting of trees along the proposed route. Over four years later, the court lifted the stay in May 2024, noting that Chandigarh was built up and conceptualised in 1950, and cannot continue to remain like that.

But even after the stay was lifted, the project saw no further movement for months. In March last year, Chandigarh Member of Parliament (MP) Manish Tewari raised the issue in the Lok Sabha, following which the Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari clarified that a revised project report and estimate were in progress after lifting of stay order, considering the substantial time gap since the project’s initial approval. In January 2025, the ministry had also issued a stern letter, pulling up the administration over the prolonged delay in submitting the revised figures. In March 2025, the UT engineering department finally submitted a revised cost estimate of over ₹200 crore, a 45% increase from ₹137 crore pegged in 2019. Though the ministry gave its approval in July, the administration took another seven months to float the tenders.

As per information, the administration received 12 bids in the tenders floated this February. Following scrutiny by a high-powered joint technical committee, eight bids were shortlisted after qualifying the technical evaluation.

Officials said the financial bids of these eight eligible agencies will now be opened, after which the contract will be awarded to one of them.