Chandigarh-Yamunanagar rail link still on slow track

Pradeep Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 9

Touted as the lifeline of the Shivalik region spanning over Panchkula, Ambala and Yamunanagar districts, the Chandigarh-Yamunanagar rail link seems to have been going on a slow track.

In fact, this has apparently become clear after the Railways response to an RTI application filed by Vijay Bansal, president of the Shivalik Vikas Manch, that only Rs 1,000 has been sanctioned in the 2021-22 Budget for the 91-km project. The project, which could prove to be a game-changer for the Shivalik region’s development, was announced in the Union Budget 2013-14 by the erstwhile UPA government. Subsequently, an amount of Rs 25 crore was sanctioned for a survey.

However, the work on the project was virtually put “on hold” with the new regimes, headed by the BJP, at the Centre and Haryana in 2014. Though the senior Haryana Government functionaries, including Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, continued to pursue the matter with the Centre yet no concrete work on ground was visible. The Centre’s condition that the state government provide free land and bear 50 per cent of the cost seemed to have acted as a stumbling block for the project.