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Shorter route to airport: HC for joint meeting between Punjab, UT to expedite work
The meeting is to be held on August 23 at UT Guest house, where key officers from UT and Punjab, including Chandigarh deputy commissioner, Punjab advocate general Vinod Ghai, senior advocate Chetan Mittal and other lawyers associated with the PIL will participate. The HC gave Mohali administration eight weeks to remove remaining illegal structures within 100 metres of the airport.
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday directed officers of Punjab government and Chandigarh administration to hold a joint meeting to expedite work on the shorter route between Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport and the city.
The meeting is to be held on August 23 at UT Guest house, where key officers from UT and Punjab, including Chandigarh deputy commissioner, Punjab advocate general Vinod Ghai, senior advocate Chetan Mittal and other lawyers associated with the PIL will participate.
The meeting will be presided over by additional solicitor general Satya Pal Jain in the presence of senior advocate and amicus curiae ML Sareen.
Post this meeting, UT would give date-wise details of implementation of the project on next date of hearing after consulting all stakeholders.
The directions were passed by the bench of chief justice RS Jha during resumed hearing of a PIL on the issue of infrastructural deficiencies at the airport.
The Chandigarh administration is planning a parallel shorter route to the airport via Sector 48. The new road will start from the T-point intersection of Vikas Marg in Sector 48 (coming from Sector-43 ISBT) and Purv Marg (coming from Tribune Chowk).
The current distance from this intersection to the airport is 11.5 km after traversing through Mohali. The shorter route will reduce this to around 3.5 km, thereby bringing the travel time down from 25 minutes to 5 minutes.
A total of 56 acres needs to be acquired for the project of which 42 acres fall in Chandigarh and the remaining 14 acres in Punjab’s Jagatpura and Khandala villages. The project is to be funded by UT but land acquisition cost is to be borne by both for the areas in their jurisdiction.
Meanwhile, the court gave Mohali administration eight weeks to remove remaining illegal structures within 100 metres of the airport.
As per state’s advocate general Vinod Ghai, there were a total of 93 structures out of which 22 have been demolished and 71 are left.
In 15 cases, fresh notices for demolition have been served and in 56 cases, letter of intents have been issued. All those whose structures are being removed are to be compensated, he told the court.
As per a 2019 survey, there are 314 structures falling within 100 metres of the airport in Pabhat village under Zirakpur MC. Of these, the illegal structures are estimated to be 93 in number. In March 2011, construction within the 100-metre periphery of the airport was banned through a notification issued under the Works of Defence Act, 1903 and these structures have come up after that.
