SNE NETWORK.AMRITSAR/CHANDIGARH.
The pace of the Delhi-Katra Expressway being built under the Bharat Mala Project is very slow in Punjab. While toll plazas have started on the expressway in Haryana, land acquisition work has not been completed in Punjab yet.
70 percent of the work is still pending in Amritsar district. At the same time, only 47 percent of the land has been acquired in Tarn Taran. Recently, there was a fierce clash between farmers and police during land acquisition for the Amritsar-Jamnagar highway in Bathinda. The administration and farmers have come face to face in Amritsar. Earlier, when there were attacks on engineers and employees of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), Union Minister Nitin Gadkari had warned of cancelling the NHAI projects given to Punjab. Now once again, due to the conflict between farmers and the administration, the work of the expressway seems to be hanging. Special report based on this.
Work is going on very slowly in Jalandhar, changes had to be made
The work of Delhi-Amritsar-Jammu-Katra Expressway is going on at a snail’s pace in Jalandhar. This expressway will pass through Punjab as well as Jalandhar. Under its route, a part of the expressway from Kang Saboo village, 15 km from Wadala Chowk in Jalandhar, has been diverted towards Nakodar and sent towards Goindwal Sahib.
Apart from this, the other part will move towards Kapurthala road through village Rampur Lalian and it is crossing Kartarpur. Under the master plan of this highway, it is going to connect to Kapurthala on one side and Phagwara on the other. Talking about the pace of work of this project, work has already been started on the fields of Kang Saboo village through which the highway will pass. People will be able to reach Jammu in 2.30 hours through the expressway being built under this project, whereas due to the delay in this work, people are taking 6 to 6.5 hours to reach Jammu from Jalandhar.
Along with this, the expressway will pass through the town of Phillaur and pass through Nakodar. The boundary of the Cantonment area adjoining Jalandhar is being extended from the rural area to Lambra, Kala Sangha Road and Kapurthala Road. Due to this project, the area of the city has increased from 90 km to 125 km. Before the Municipal Corporation elections, 13 villages of the Cantonment area were included in the Municipal Corporation limits.
Jalandhar and Kapurthala districts have given 97 percent land for the 39.5 km long Phase-1 of Package-10, while Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Sangrur and Malerkotla have approved 96 percent land for the 43.04 km long Phase-1 of Package-9 and the 36.8 km long Phase-1 of Package-8. Similarly, 83 percent of the land has been given for the 43.02 km long Phase-1 Package-11 in Jalandhar, Kapurthala and Gurdaspur districts, while 69 percent of all encroachments have been removed for the 35.09 km long Phase-1 Package-8 passing through Ludhiana and Malerkotla districts.
Hitch in land acquisition in Ludhiana, project lagged behind
This project has lagged behind due to continuous hurdles in land acquisition in Punjab. This project is passing through an area of 38.95 km in 24 villages of Ludhiana. There were also a lot of problems regarding land acquisition, but now the acquisition work has been almost completed and construction work is going on on it. This project was started in 2022. The company was given the contract on March 15, 2023 in a 22 km package in Ludhiana district, but due to non-acquisition of land, the company could not work and now the company has given up working on this project. Apart from this, about sixty percent of the work of this project has been completed in the area of 16.9 km in the second package.
It is being told that this project is worth a total of 39 thousand crores. Construction work is being done in 21 packages in this. In this, 14 flyovers, 14 railway overbridges, 31 interchanges are being built. This project is 670 km long in total. Traffic expert Rahul Verma says that the work of this project has been delayed due to land acquisition in Ludhiana district. He said that the completion of this project will bring great relief to Punjabis. He said that there is a land acquisition problem in Punjab, the Ludhiana Highway project is also stuck due to problems in acquisition.
Work has been stopped in Amritsar for seven months, will be completed by March 2026
People will have to wait till March 2026 for the completion of the work of Delhi-Amritsar Katra Expressway in Punjab. Dispute with the government regarding compensation of farmers continues. Farmers are not giving possession of their land to the government and NHAI for the highway. The highway work under Amritsar district has been completely stopped for the last 7 months.
70 percent work is yet to be completed in Amritsar and Tarn Taran districts.
It is worth noting that 5 green field expressway projects were started in the country by the Ministry of Road Transport. Under this, after the completion of the Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Express project, people will be able to complete the 669 km journey in a few hours. Even the total length of these 5 expressway projects being built across the country is 2489 km.
Under the highway, the area of Amritsar district comes under Phase-1 Green Field of the project. In which according to package number 11, 43.2 km Jalandhar-Kapurthala Road NH-703A near Khojewal village to Amritsar Tanda Road NH503A near Hargobindpur is about 319.400 km to 362.420 km. Similarly as per package number 12, it is 35.28 km from Amritsar Tanda Road NH-503A Near Shri Hargobindpura to Pathankot Gurdaspur Road NH-54 Near Gurdaspur 362.4 It is within the radius of 397.700 km from 100 km. This area enters Gurdaspur via Jandiala Guru and Lopoke area etc. 70 percent of the work of this area is still pending.
The project has been in controversies from the beginning
The expressway project has been in controversies from the beginning. Sometimes the farmers expressed their opposition to the compensation and sometimes a case of assault on the engineer working on the project came to light. However, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari himself has written a letter to the government to stop this project in Punjab, but later it was restarted after the intervention of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann. Till now the work is not being done due to the continuous protest by the farmers to take possession of the land, whereas this work was to be completed by March 2024. SDM-2 Mankanwal Singh says that many farmers are not giving possession of the land yet. Talks are going on with them. The pending work will be completed soon.