Threat looms over flats in Mani Majra RUB vicinity

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 13

Delayed construction of a railway underbridge (RUB) is posing threat to several CHB flats at the Mani Majra Housing Complex (MHC) here.

With heavy rains in the city, an area dug up for the RUB has got waterlogged. As a result, the loose earth is eroding in the absence of a protective wall and poses a grave danger to four-storey buildings in its vicinity.

Col Gursewak Singh (retd), president of RWA, MHC, said the UT must construct a security wall around the houses first before carrying out the work further. He said if the erosion of earth continued, the flats in the vicinity would be in danger. There are 48 four-storey flats in the block. If anything happens to the foundation of the building, it would prove disastrous.

Area residents alleged that the RUB construction was going at a snail’s pace though such works that cause inconvenience to people should be completed on a war footing.

In a letter to UT Adviser Manoj Parida, Colonel Singh had stated that when MP Kirron Kher had laid the foundation stone of the RUB on August 17, 2017, the Chief Engineer of the UT Administration had announced that the work would be completed by December 2018. He said a delegation of the RWA had met the MP on January 19 about the issue and the Chief Engineer had then assured her that the construction would complete by April 2019. Residents even took up the issue with UT Administrator VP Singh Badnore on January 23. However, the construction was still far from completion, he added

Jagtar Singh Jagga, councillor of ward number 25 in which the building in question falls, said while the works related to the MC have been completed, the delay was on the part of the UT Administration.