NHAI sets to start ₹731-cr Pinjore-Baddi road project

The four-laning of 36-km-long Pinjore-Baddi Highway is all set to start as NHAI has planned to float tender for the project shortly. The cost of the project has now increased from ₹510 crore to ₹731.67 crore and it will be completed in two and a half years and the construction work on the project is likely to start in the next couple of months. The mega road project will give relief for lakhs of road users of Himachal Pradesh as well as Haryana who are visiting the industrial township of Baddi regularly. Suresh Kumar Sharma, project director of the Shimla unit at NHAI informed that the tender process had been started by the main office of the NHAI in New Delhi and the project is proposed to be completed in 30 months. Currently, the road is in a deteriorated condition and it takes hours for motorists to cross the 36-km stretch and has virtually become a death trap for motorists. The four-laning of the road from Pinjore to Swarghat in HP was approved by the Central Government and the road was to be widened up to 45 meters for which a total of 54.9 hectares of land was to be acquired by the government. Of this, 28 hectares of land to be provided by HP, and about 16 small and five large bridges have been proposed to be constructed on the 36-km stretch. There are about 2,500 companies in the Baddi and Nalagarh areas of HP and more than 35,000 vehicles, including staff buses of the companies, are regularly plying on this road stretch.