Ludhiana may have been billed the “easiest city to do business in India” by the World Bank, but it lacks adequate infrastructure to justify the status. Bad roads and power cuts apart, its most ambitious project ? the Ludhiana ring road project ? is in a limbo for the past over five years.
Patterned on the lines of outer Ring Road of Delhi, the project is the brainchild of Punjab Infrastructure Development Board (PIDB). When conceived, the project was estimated to cost around Rs 500 crore, which has now overshot Rs 1,300 crore.
Punjab government officials told FE that the Punjab government is now in the process of applying to the Centre for viability capital funding. The project would require more than 1,000 acres to construct the ring road, which will be 62.5 km long, and will be constructed out of the municipal limits of Ludhiana.
The ring road is expected to not only decongest Ludhiana’s roads, but also provide a bypass to vehicles on NH-1 and NH-95. The ring road will touch Chandigarh road, Ambala road, Ferozepur road and Jalandhar road.
However, delays have marred the project from day one. First it took more than three years for PIDB to check the feasibility of the project, for which Mott Macdonald, a private company, was hired. Though the company submitted its report long back, the authorities are yet to finalise the alignment of the ring road. What’s more, the government has not even appointed a land acquisition officer for acquisition of land for the project.
Construction majors, including Reliance Energy, Larsen and Toubro, Gammon India and Gammon Infrastructure Projects, GMR Energy and GMR Power Corporation, Unitech, Emaar MGF, Oberoi Construction and IVRC, have submitted expression of interest for the project.
Official sources, however, say the government is extremely keen on the development of Ludhiana, for which it has even formed Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority (GLADA) and approved the master plan for Ludhiana. The master plan has been made for a projected population of 48 lakh by 2021.
Touted as Punjab’s first city master plan, it has been prepared within the framework of the Punjab Regional and Town Planning and Development (Amendment) Act, 2006, with a total planning area of 1,271.22 sq km, comprising Ludhiana, Sahnewal, Doraha, Mullapur, Phillaur and 301 villages falling in the notified local planning area of Ludhiana.
