The Punjab and Haryana high court has issued notices to the Punjab government and the Centre on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) challenging the construction of a ₹54.76 crore railway overbridge (ROB) in Dhuri.
Acting on the petition filed by a local resident, Amritroop Singh Dhaliwal, the court has set April 22 as the next date of hearing.
The petitioners alleged that the ROB being constructed over the Sheron distributary, passing through the residential area at Dhuri, will lead to cutting down of more than 250 fully-grown trees and also that the cost of construction of the overbridge is higher than the earlier proposed railway underbridge (RUB).
As per the plea, the ROB is estimated to cost ₹54.76 crore, whereas RUB would cost only ₹10.38 crore.
The plea further stated that the proposed site of ROB will not solve the traffic congestion, while the previous plan of RUB could have alleviated the traffic woes.
The Union ministry of railways in January this year, formally approved the construction of the ROB at Dhuri, ending a political standoff between chief minister Bhagwant Mann and Union minister Ravneet Singh Bittu. It has been a flashpoint for over a year, as in June last year, Mann, who represents Dhuri, claimed that the state government would entirely fund the project to resolve long-standing traffic woes. Mann had then promised a completion timeline of 18 months.
{{/usCountry}}The Union ministry of railways in January this year, formally approved the construction of the ROB at Dhuri, ending a political standoff between chief minister Bhagwant Mann and Union minister Ravneet Singh Bittu. It has been a flashpoint for over a year, as in June last year, Mann, who represents Dhuri, claimed that the state government would entirely fund the project to resolve long-standing traffic woes. Mann had then promised a completion timeline of 18 months.
{{/usCountry}}However, Bittu countered these claims, accusing the CM of ‘pure optics’ and asserting that the state had failed to deposit any funds with the railways. The railways’ approval effectively shifts the project’s ownership to the Centre.