Nearly a year after awarding contracts for the construction of three roundabouts on the PR-7 road, commonly known as the Airport Road, the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) has dropped the plan, citing lack of a feasible traffic diversion strategy and the potential for severe congestion during construction.
The roundabouts were to come up at Sector 68/69/78/79, Sector 67/68/79/80 and Sohana gurdwara junctions to help ease traffic movement.
A senior GMADA official said, “With no alternate routes available, introducing roundabouts in the middle of ongoing road-widening and infrastructure projects would have worsened the gridlock, instead of easing it.”
The 200-ft wide Airport Road, which runs for 18 km from Gopal Sweets near Sunny Enclave, Kharar, to Chhat light points in Zirakpur, sees heavy vehicular movement on a daily basis as it is not just the primary route for airport-bound traffic but also a key transit point for vehicles travelling between Mohali, Zirakpur, Ambala, Delhi, Kharar, Rupnagar, Ludhiana, Anandpur Sahib, and Himachal Pradesh.
Following a traffic and topographical survey, conducted by the Punjab Road Safety and Traffic Research Centre and GMADA, Centre had last year recommended the construction of two roundabouts of 56-metre-diameter at the Sector 68/69/78/79 and Sector 67/68/79/80 junctions and a dumbbell rotary near Sohana gurdwara.
The contract was awarded to a private firm in July last year at a cost of ₹11 crore. But in November 2024, the then administrative secretary of the Punjab housing and urban development department, Rahul Tiwari, raised concerns over the feasibility of building roundabouts on such a high-traffic corridor and directed GMADA to reconsider the plan.
{{/usCountry}}The contract was awarded to a private firm in July last year at a cost of ₹11 crore. But in November 2024, the then administrative secretary of the Punjab housing and urban development department, Rahul Tiwari, raised concerns over the feasibility of building roundabouts on such a high-traffic corridor and directed GMADA to reconsider the plan.
{{/usCountry}}GMADA has already constructed five roundabouts along the 150-ft-wide sector road running parallel to Airport Road. These include rotaries at: Sectors 76/77/88/89, Sectors 77/78/88/87, Sectors 78/79/87/86, Sectors 79/80/85/86 and Sectors 80/81/84/85.
IT City-Kurali bypass to help
During a recent stakeholders’ meeting, a GMADA official revealed that the Greenfield Project, better known as IT City-Kurali bypass, will serve as an alternative route to airport and ease traffic on PR-7 Road. The 31-kilometre road, being developed under the Centre’s Bharatmala Pariyojana, will start from IT Chowk (PR-7) near Chandigarh International Airport and end at the Kurali-Chandigarh road. The project is set to become operational from September 1.