Uturn construction on Lohia Path delayed due to LDAPWD tiff
After district magistrate’s rap on resolving the issue at the earliest, PWD to undertake job
LUCKNOW: A tiff between the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) and the Public Works Department (PWD) has worsened the traffic situation on the busy Lohia Path in Gomti Nagar over the past week. The two departments locked horns over who would construct the U-turn that’s supposed to come up just ahead of Fun Mall, said officials concerned.
At a meeting earlier this month, a decision was taken to construct a U-turn on Lohia Path for easing the heavy traffic rush witnessed at the Lohia Park crossing. Senior officials of district administration, Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC), LDA, traffic police, city town planning and PWD were present when all these departments gave their consent for the project.
Around a week ago, after consulting the traffic department, traffic police, LMC, district administration and PWD, the LDA started demolishing the divider on Lohia Path.
However, in a U-turn of its own a couple of days later, PWD officials stopped LDA’s work at the site.
PWD chief engineer Rajpal Singh said Lohia Path belonged to PWD, so the U-turn should also be constructed by it. “LDA has not taken a no-objection certificate (NoC) from PWD to perform any sort of work o n the road. Ideally, LDA should have taken NOC from PWD,” he said.
Meanwhile, LDA chief engineer Indu Shekhar Singh expressed surprise over the “delay caused by PWD”.
“All decisions were taken in front of senior officials of district administration and various departments including PWD and LMC. During the meeting, it was decided that LDA would perform the work. So, why the question of NOC all of a sudden?” Singh asked.
“One must acknowledge that lakhs of commuters use Lohia Path daily and are facing traffic jams because of this situation. These departments must keep public convenience in mind. After PWD’s objections, we stopped work. But, so far, PWD has not started any work on the U–turn, which is urgently needed for resolving traffic congestion at Lohia Park crossing,” he added.
Due to the inter-departmental tussle, the work that should have been completed in a day or two has been lying incomplete for a week now.
In all this time, commuters have been suffering daily traffic jams on the stretch.
Taking note of this, the district administration directed all departments to perform works of
public convenience on their roads. Departments such as PWD, LDA and LMC have been asked to undertake construction jobs on roads maintained by them.
This means that the U-turn on Lohia path will now be constructed by PWD.
District magistrate Kaushal Raj Sharma also directed all departments to ensure that works of public interest are not delayed due to internal fights.