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Ludhiana’s much-awaited Pakhowal Road RUB to open in March first week
Mayor Balkar Singh Sandhu and municipal commissioner Pardeep Sabharwal inspected the site on Wednesday and made the announcement. Sharing details mayor Balkar Singh Sandhu said the work is already at its finishing stage.
In a major respite for city residents, the rail-underbridge (RUB) connecting Pakhowal Road to Leisure Valley is all set to be thrown open for the public by first week of March.
Mayor Balkar Singh Sandhu and municipal commissioner Pardeep Sabharwal inspected the site on Wednesday and made the announcement. Sharing details mayor Balkar Singh Sandhu said the work is already at its finishing stage. “While carpeting of the road will be completed in three to four days, nearly 10 days will be spent on its electrification,” said the mayor.
The mayor and MC commissioner spent nearly an hour at the site and were seen giving instructions to company officials to speed up the project.
The project remained a hot poll issue after a trial run of RUB was conducted in the presence of cabinet minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu on January 1. Later, president of the council of engineers Kapil Arora had visited the site and stated that the project was nowhere near completion.
The opposition parties pounced on the opportunity and began targeting the ruling Congress for using the RUB project as a poll plank.
Missed several deadlines
The under-construction RUB on Pakhowal Road, passing from Pakhowal Canal Bridge and leading up to Sarabha Nagar, has already missed several deadlines in the past.
Earlier, authorities had stated that the RUB will be opened for traffic by August 31, but the deadline was extended to December 31. The deadline had to be further extended after a sewer line in the area was damaged during the final stages of construction.
The project was announced in 2007, but got an impetus when it was included in the list of Smart City Mission projects. On September 6, 2017, the then local bodies minister Navjot Sidhu had laid its foundation stone and since then, it had been caught in the rigmarole of approval and tendering processes, which inflated the cost from ₹62 crore to ₹120 crore.
World-class railway station a soon a reality: Mayor
The railways is soon going to start the work for setting up a world-class railway station in Ludhiana.
A delegation of railway officials met the MC commissioner and mayor and sought better coordination and suggestions for the project.
Mayor Sandhu said during the meeting, the plan to build the East and West wing of the station came up. “Building entrances on both sides of the railway station will reduce the rush on the main entrance located near Clock Tower,” said Sandhu.
He said that a road, which will run parallel to the railway track from Jagraon Bridge to Lakar Bridge, will be laid to accommodate the passengers living on the western side of the city.
Sandhu said work will be carried out by a private company which will also carry out the maintenance of railway station on the lines of airports in the country.
There will be food courts, restaurants, escalators, air-conditioned waiting rooms, dormitory, VIP lounge and CCTV cameras at the station to keep round-the-clock surveillance.
“I have told them to make provisions for metro-rail station near the railway station as the intra-city high-speed train project is on the anvil,” said Sandhu.
