Union ministry to come up with Kharar-Rajpura bypass
The road will give relief to commuters from Delhi moving towards HP and J&K as they won’t have to enter Chandigarh
After scrapping the project to widen the 40-km long Kharar-Banur-Tepla road,the Union ministry of road transport and highways has now come up with greenfield alignment of 35km road to connect Ghataur village near Kharar (on Kharar-Ropar highway) with National Highway (NH) 44 near Rajpura.
The new road will decongest Chandigarh and Zirakpur by giving traffic coming from Delhi side towards Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir an alternate route.
Recently, member of Parliament Manish Tewari had taken up the issue with Union minister Nitin Gadkari, following which the ministry in its letter had stated that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is checking feasibility of the greenfield section. The letter further stated that bids for appointment of a consultant to prepare a detailed project report (DPR) has already been received and is currently under evaluation.
Tewari said the new road will provide major relief to commuters coming from Delhi side towards Himachal Pradesh and J&K without entering Chandigarh. He added that the land acquisition for the project should soon be started.
A year after issuing the notification for widening 40-km-long Kharar-Banur-Tepla road, the NHAI had scrapped the project in July last year, owing to high cost.
The authority was to acquire 573-acre land in around 43 villages between Tepla (near Ambala) and Kurali (near Rayat Bahra University) for widening this National Highway 205. The cost of project was pegged at ₹2,100 crore.
Speaking about the development,managing director of General Highways and Infracom Private Limited said the new road is not a replacement of the proposed Kharar-Banur-Tepla road. The greenfield road will start from near Rajpura, which is far from Tepla near Banur, hence traffic on Kharar-Banur-Tepla road passing through Chandigarh will not be diverted on the proposed greenfield road.
