Chief Secretary directs to complete pending works for National Highways and Railway Projects in state

Chandigarh, May 25, 2023: Punjab Chief Secretary Vijay Kumar Janjua on Thursday gave orders to complete the National Highways and Railway Projects work in a timely manner. While reviewing the ongoing projects of the National Highways Authority (NHAI), all the Deputy Commissioners were asked to complete the land acquisition process immediately and pay compensation to the concerned persons so that the construction of the roads could be completed on time.

During the meeting with the senior officers of the concerned departments and NHAI and Deputy Commissioners of the districts, Mr. Janjua said that following the instructions of the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to complete the national projects in the state on time, they should be completed fast and no laxity will be tolerated in this matter. He said that the farmers of the state are to get an amount of Rs. 15,000 Cr as compensation and construction of roads costing Rs. 40,000 Cr is to be done. With the construction of the new Expressway, the pace of development in the state will be faster and investors will get a big boost.

The Chief Secretary took stock of the actual work of each project while reviewing the same district wise and gave instructions to complete them. If there was any problem related to the department, he directed to remove it. He asked the Revenue Department and Deputy Commissioners to depute officers as per requirement. He also asked NHAI to complete the remaining work related to them.

Janjua further informed that 15 Greenfield Expressways with a length of 1173 km and 9 Brownfield Expressways with a length of 436 km are being constructed in the state. Delhi-Amritsar-Kattra Expressway, Amritsar-Bathinda, Ludhiana-Bathinda, Mohali-Bathinda and Ludhiana-Ropar, Jalandhar Bypass, Amritsar Bypass, Mohali Bypass and Ludhiana Bypass are prominent among them. On the issue raised by the Traffic Police in the meeting, the Chief Secretary asked the officials that the entry and exit points in the new highways should be marked keeping in view the local needs so that people do not face any problems later.

The meeting was attended by Financial Commissioner Revenue KAP Sinha, Additional Chief Secretary Forest Vikas Garg, Secretary Public Works Neel Kanth Avhad, Adviser NHAI Hussan Lal, ADGP Law and Order Arpit Shukla, ADGP Traffic AS Rai, Divisional Commissioner Jalandhar Gurpreet Kaur Sapra, Divisional Commissioner Ropar Indu Malhotra and the project directors of NHAI were also present. Apart from this, the Deputy Commissioners of the respective districts also attended the meeting through video conferencing.