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Mohali: GMADA does a u-turn on roundabouts plan for Airport Road
Following a traffic and topographical survey of Airport Road, 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
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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.
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.
