Punjab Govt. to take up highway proposal with Centre

Chandigarh, Aug 22 (UNI) The Punjab Government will soon take up the proposal with Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to declare Guru Gobind Singh Marg from Takhat Keshgarh Sahib at Anandpur Sahib to Takhat Sachkhand Hazoor Sahib at Nanded in Maharastra via Takhat Damdama Sahib at Talwandi Sabo as a national highway.

The highway would pass through the states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Maharastra.

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had mooted this proposal with the Union Government and the Governments of those states through which the highway would pass.

To begin with Guru Gobind Singh Marg from Anandpur Sahib to Talwandi Sabo is being declared as a state highway. A request for the up-gradation of the proposed road as a national highway is being made to the Government of India.

A team of scholars in Sikh History as well as geographical experts would identify and delineate the path on which the Tenth Guru of Sikhs, Sri Guru Gobind Singh, had travelled from Anandpur Sahib to Hazoor Sahib at Nanded.

This would be the first national highway to connect three of the five holy Takhats of Sikhs.

Mr Badal thoroughly discussed the proposal with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) Chairman Jivtesh Singh Maini here. Mr Maini assured the Chief Minister that NHAI would fully support the proposal of State Government, keeping in view its historical and religious importance.

Mr Badal informed the NHAI Chairman that the State PWD (B&R) Department had been directed to strengthen and widen the existing Guru Gobind Singh Marg which had already been declared as state highway.

He said that once the entire work on the Marg was completed within the state jurisdiction then the Punjab Government would take up the issue with the Chief Ministers of concerned states for the execution of this project from Takhat Sri Damdama Sahib, Talwandi Sabo to Nanded.

UNI