Sukhbir Singh Badal, Deputy Chief Minister, Punjab today ordered the preparation of a comprehensive, inclusive and futuristic Master Plan for Jalandhar and surrounding areas keeping in view the challenges of next 25 years. Presiding over a meeting to review the projects of Jalandhar and Doaba region, Mr. Badal said that we must have a inclusive Master Plan that would include rehabilitation of sewerage network, water supply network, providing metered connections to every inhabitation, series of sewerage treatment plants and solid waste treatment plants, redesigning and widening of interior and arterial roads of the city, conceptualizing new road engineering to ensure smooth flow of traffic, installation of CCTV cameras all over the cities and most importantly controlling the execution of Master Plan with a singular nodal agency.
Laying the future roadmap for heartland of Doaba, Mr. Badal said that though Jalandhar known as sports city of India and with the sizable presence of leather processing industries, the city has not been able to cope up with increasing pressure on civic amenities. He said that the plan must include 100% coverage for sewerage and water supply network, rehabilitating the old sewerage network, laying the storm water drains along all the roads, water recharging facilities to meet future demands and providing mandatorily sewerage and water connections to all inhabitant units. He said that Municipal Corporation should also draw up a plan to provide energy efficient LED street lights, construction of sufficient numbers of bus queue shelters and plantation of saplings along the roads, wherever feasible.
Emphasizing on up gradation of existing road network besides planning new roads to streamline the traffic problem in the city, Mr. Badal asked PWD to put a comprehensive proposal in this regard. He said that while expanding the existing roads, care should be taken that there was minimum displacement of population in this operation. He said that PWD should also explore the possibility of laying concrete roads instead of premix bitumen roads where the pressure of traffic on the road was quiet high.
Asking the traffic department to put up traffic lights on busy intersections, the Deputy Chief Minister asked them to enforce No Parking regulation strictly. He asked the Corporation to float the tenders for bidding out outdoor advertising panels for advertising; he asked to launch a campaign against illegal hoardings, dotting various roads.
Expressing concern over slow execution of Solid Waste collection project in Jalandhar City, Mr. Badal asked the Commissioner to replicate Lahore model in Jalandhar and engage the services of Turkish company managing Lahore services as consultant for the success of this project. He asked the Commissioner to visit Lahore if it was necessary to study the project. The Deputy Chief Minister also constituted a sub-committee including Mr. Manvesh Singh Sidhu, Special Principal Secretary to Deputy CM and Chief Administrator , PUDA, Mr. Supreet Singh Gulati, CA JDA , Mr. Vinay Bublani Comissioner Jalandhar MC to put up suggestive plan after taking feedback from various opinion leaders including elected representatives of the area.
Prominent amongst those present in the meeting included Bhagat Chuni Lal, Local Bodies Minister, Mr. Krishan Dev Bhandari, Chief Parliamentary Secretary, Mr. Manoranjan Kalia, Mr. Pargat Singh, both MLAs, Mayor Sunil Jyoti, Senior Deputy Mayor, Mr. Supreet Singh Gulati, Chief Administrator, JDA, Mr. Vinay Bublani, Commissioner Jalandhar Municipal Corporation and other senior officers of concerned department.