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Gurdwara management finally relents, deadly curve on Mohali’s Airport Road set to be straightened
Gurdwara management agrees to relocate to another piece of land, allowing GMADA to begin work to straighten out the stretch
The long-standing impasse between GMADA and Gurdwara Mata Sunder Kaur in Sector 70 over straightening out the deadly curve on Airport Road along the gurdwara’s premises has ended, with its authorities agreeing to give up the land.
The gurdwara management has agreed to relocate to another piece of land, to be provided by Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA), allowing the development authority to begin work to straighten out the killer stretch falling on the dividing road between Sectors 70 and 77, near the Sohana gurdwara light point.
Tagged as a “black spot”, the curve has seen 100 accidents since it was constructed in 2009, leading to 12 fatalities. Accidents here form a major chunk of the overall mishaps on the 18-km Airport Road, according to Mohali police.
At the time of the Airport Road’s construction, a portion of land was not released by the gurdwara, set up by a particular sect head, forcing the government to build the road with an “S” curve.
“We have now got the gurdwara authority’s consent. The gurdwara will be relocated. We will prepare the project report for straightening out the road in the next two weeks, following which an estimate will be prepared and tenders will be floated. We are hopeful of completing the project in the next three months,” a senior GMADA officer said.
The authority had approved an alternative site for the gurdwara in January after former Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi directed it to find a solution to the deadly curve. Channi had also approached Baba Balbir Singh, the chief of Budha Dal that runs the gurdwara, to reach a consensus.
Several organisations, along with area councillor Sukhdev Singh Patwari, had written letters to GMADA, suggesting to allot land to the gurdwara authorities somewhere else. Patwari had even laid out a design for straightening out the road.
Last year in January, the then superintendent of police, traffic, Mohali, Gurjot Singh Kaler, had prepared a report to make the curve safer. The suggestions included installation of mirrors, reflectors and construction of speed breakers. Following this, police had installed barricades and rumble strips on the road.
The report also suggested that crash barriers installed by GMADA had broken and illegal cuts have been created by commuters to take U-turn, risking lives, while at some places crash barriers were still broken. Kaler had inspected the spot after a woman and her teen daughter were killed as a sand-laden tipper hit their two-wheeler at this blind curve. The police official had submitted his findings to the GMADA chief engineer.
Earlier in April 2019, Punjab traffic adviser Navdeep Asija, after conducting a three-dimensional safety audit using drones, had revealed major flaws in the design of Airport Road, and stated in the report that it is not pedestrian and cyclist-friendly. “The rate of fatalities due to accidents on the Airport Road is double the average for national highways. Even on urban roads, it is 10 to 15 times lower,” Asija had said.
