The long-delayed four-laning of the Jalandhar-Hoshiarpur highway has hit another roadblock with an 11-km stretch of this project now set to be reduced to three lanes due to land possession problems caused by the 2016 land scam linked to the project. Otherwise, the project involved 39-km road that had to be four-laned beginning from village Jandhusingha in Jalandhar to village Chohal in Hoshiarpur. Now, 11-km out of this will be a 10-metre wide road of three lanes instead of being 14-metres throughout. The Central Work Public Department (CPWD) has revised the plan so that it does not stall the progress of already delayed project. The problematic stretch starts from Nasrala Adda in Hoshiarpur to Banjarwal chowk towards Chohal in Hoshiarpur. On this stretch the possession of the land could not be taken because the alleged Hoshiarpur land scam, which impacted 2-km area along this route. Most of the owners of the land here were those, who are the accused in Hoshiarpur land scam. They were accused of purchasing land at throwaway prices just before NHAI acquisition, allegedly after getting insider information about the upcoming project. This land was later converted from farm land to commercial with alleged connivance of SDM, Hoshairpur, helping them significantly higher compensation from NHAI in 2016. Can construct 10 metre wide 3-lane road with the land available to us on around 11-km long stretch because the possession on the land acquired on this stretch could not be taken till date. So to avoid further delay, we have planned to construct 3-lane on the available land with a provision of widening it in future when the land would be available to us, said Executive Engineer (XEN) Ram Singh of CWPD wing, Hoshiarpur, adding that already a proposal regarding this was sent to the Ministry of Road transport and Highway. Meanwhile, in the past over five years ever since the construction works was started only 50% of this highway could be completed. Most of the incomplete part falls under district Hoshiarpur except one major flyover in Adampur (District Jalandhar) creating a major bottleneck. The original constructed cost of the project was Rs 356 crore which might have exalted now due to delay and increasing prices of raw material. The total cost of the project was over Rs 1,000 crore, including land acquisition compensation, construction and clearing of trees etc.
