This story is from February 13, 2009

Underbridge to overcome bottleneck

Invigorating hope among the commuters, Railway authorities have decided to construct an underbridge at Shastri Nagar - where the city witnesses the most troublesome traffic snarls day in and day out.
Underbridge to overcome bottleneck
LUDHIANA: Invigorating hope among the commuters, Railway authorities have decided to construct an underbridge at Shastri Nagar - where the city witnesses the most troublesome traffic snarls day in and day out.
However, the fund-starved MC has been delaying the matter citing one or the reason. In a meeting held at New Delhi on Wednesday, the Railway officials assured the MC bosses, including commissioner GS Ghuman, that they would construct the underbridge, the proposal for which would come up during the rail budget session.
It was also decided that though the underbridge would be constructed by the Railways, the MC would construct the link roads.
The announcement attains significance as the commuters have been consistently demanding Railway Over Bridge (ROB). Observing the traffic congestion in the area the demand for ROB was taken seriously and it was proposed in the City Development Plan, but the fund-starved MC could not proceed on it further.
Though in order to check its feasibility, a team of Government Planning Agency RITES came to the city in November. The officers of team, including additional general manager, joint director OP Kapoor accompanied by the officers of MC had visited the site to check the feasibility of the project.
Recently, the state government had approved the proposal regarding it to be sent to state government for construction of the ROB under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). However, when the proposal was discussed with the officials of the Railways department last month, they came up with the idea of constructing the under bridge at the Shastri Nagar Railway crossing rather then a ROB as the latter is already being constructed at the Pakhowal Road which is near the Shastri Nagar so it would not be suitable to build two ROBs nearby.
Meanwhile, when contacted MC commissioner GS Ghuman said with the move will help reduce traffic congestion in the area. He said the matter was already under consideration and now it has been formalised.
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