| Project Detail : | Five years after the foundation stone of Muktsar’s railway overbridge on the Jalalabad road was laid by then Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal, the construction is yet to begin. What’s worse, encroachments are yet to be removed.
Tenders had been called eight times and the construction cost has increased tremendously in this period. On October 23, 2013, then PWD Minister Sharanjit Singh Dhillon had announced the estimated cost of this proposed RoB as Rs 23 crore. When Sukhbir had laid the foundation stone in 2014, the project cost was estimated to be Rs 24.31 crore, which has now become nearly Rs 38 crore. Tenders have now been called for the ninth time.
The state government even deposited nearly Rs 18 crore to the Railways in 2016.
SS Bedi, Executive Engineer, PWD (B&R), Muktsar, said, “Tenders have been called eight times in the past but no interested construction firm could fulfil the conditions. Now, some conditions have been relaxed and we are hopeful that the work will be allotted soon.
The present government too had released Rs 2 crore for the construction of this RoB. Before this, the state government had wanted to scrap this project and even written a letter to the Railways asking them if the money could be refunded.
Meanwhile, local residents have demanded that a nodal officer be appointed so that the construction could be started early. |
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