Punjab Heritage - Gateway of Amritsar soon to be a reality

Gateway of Amritsar soon to be a reality

Written by Vibhor Mohan, Tribune News Service

Saturday, 07 July 2007

Gateway of Amritsar To speed up work, MC asks govts for more funds

Amritsar,
After a span of nearly two decades, ‘Gateway of Amritsar’, an ambitious project of the municipal corporation, would be soon greeting visitors on the way to the Wagah joint checkpost. The gate, being built in the memory of Sham Singh Attari, a lieutenant of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, is nearing completion.

In a bid to speed up the completion, the corporation has written a letter to the state government, demanding release of funds. The foundation stone work of the project was laid by the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, to commemorate the 400 years of the foundation of the holy city.

However, the construction was started last year. The corporation has already completed two-thirds of the construction work on the project, which is estimated to cost around Rs 3.35 crore.

According to plan, the entire area around the gate would be beautified with lawns encircling the structure. Even before the completion, a dhaba, being anticipated as a stopover for the tourists, has already come up near the gate.

With the completion of this project the repulsive picture of the entire Chheharta area is bound to get improved.

Besides, local shopkeepers are also hopeful of getting more business in wake of the gate being completed. “A number of residents go to Ram Bagh for their morning walk. With the gate being completed they can now come to this place for walk and merrymaking,” they feel. Initially named as ‘India Gate’, the project turned into an accident-prone area with vehicles coming from Attari ramming into the low-boundary wall encircling the three-way crossing.

This was due to the absence of streetlights and reflectors. Further, the sharp turn around the large roundabout of the chowk, demarcated for the ambitious project, had aggravated the problem. The high-beam light of the approaching heavy vehicles from the opposite direction made driving more dangerous. Besides serving as the route to the VIPs crossing the joint checkpost, the route also caters to the international "Sada-e-Sarhad" Delhi-Lahore bus service crossing the joint checkpost.

Meanwhile, from this bypass, one road leads to the international Attari railway station and Wagah joint checkpost, while the other to the Rajasansi International airport.

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