If all goes as per plans, the travel time from Baddi to PGIMER, Chandigarh, will be cut down by 15 kms and one will be able to reach the hospital from Baddi in 25 minutes. This will be possible when the road from Khuda Lahora village (Chandigarh) to Kona village in Haryana is constructed.

The road construction will start soon. A decision to this effect was taken during a meeting of the Chief Secretaries of Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab at the Punjab and Haryana Secretariat, Chandigarh, late Thursday evening. The meeting was organised by Lalit Jain, chief executive officer, Baddi Barotiwala Nalagarh Development Authority (BBNDA), to decide on connectivity with Baddi area.

“It was for the first time that the Chief Secretaires of all the three states — Prabodh Saxena from Himachal Pradesh, Sanjeev Kaushal from Haryana, and Anurag Verma from Punjab — met to discuss connectivity with Baddi. As Khuda Lahora is a village just behind PGIMER, this road is significant for patients who want to travel from Baddi to PGIMER. With the construction of this road, the travel time from Baddi to PGIMER will be cut down by 15 kms and one will be able to reach PGI from Baddi in 25 minutes. The work on the ground will start soon,” Jain told The Indian Express.

During the meeting, which discussed various alternative routes connecting the three states to Baddi, it was emphasized that Baddi being the pharmaceutical hub of Asia, manufacturing and supplying various life-saving medicines in all parts of the country, its connectivity with the other states was one of the major priorities for Himachal.

Recently, the Baddi Barotiwala Nalagarh area was completely cut off with hardly a single link left between Baddi and Pinjore in Panchkula, after the main Baddi bridge collapsed. The industrial units of this town incurred heavy losses.

Jain said, “The other connecting road on which a decision was taken was the Nawanagar (Haryana) to Sheetalpur (BBN Region) link road. This will be another link which will connect Baddi to the mainland if the connectivity of Baddi is snapped in near future. It was also decided that the CEO, BBNDA, and Panchkula Deputy Commissioner would meet often to solve any inter-state issues in future.”

There is one Dabota bridge that connects Nalagarh to Punjab, which got damaged during recent monsoon. It would be repaired on a 50:50 funding pattern to be borne by the Punjab and Himachal governments. The bridge had not been functional for the past three months.

Jain said, “The construction of a causeway at the site of the main Baddi bridge has been started by the NHAI. While the response from the Western Command, Chandimandir, is still awaited, the construction of bailey bridge will take around three months. The Haryana PWD department started repair work on the Maranwala- Barotiwala road, which was the only lifeline of Baddi and only link connecting Baddi to the outside world, started on Thursday night.”

An official of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) said, “The construction of the causeway at the site of the main Baddi bridge is expected to get completed in 20 days’ time.”

Will restore two lanes of NH-05 at Chakki Mor by Oct 15: NHAI

NHAI project director Anil Dahiya said, “The restoration of two lanes of the Chandigarh Shimla National Highway NH 05 near Chakki Mor by making a bituminous road will be done by October 15. The long-term solutions for the four-laning of the Chandigarh-Shimla National Highway will start later. The major sites on the Parwanoo-Shimla Highway where the highway has caved in are time-consuming. The minor or moderate problem areas will be covered by October 15.”