A meeting to review the progress of the Rs 650-crore Buddha Nullah Rejuvenation project was held under the chairmanship of the task force head Satguru Uday Singh of the Namdhari sect, Chief Principal Secretary to Punjab CM Suresh Kumar, besides senior officials of the Punjab Government through video-conferencing at Bachat Bhawan here today.
Villagers of Gorisan Kadar Baksh had refused to give the village land to the government for the shifting of the dairies. According to the village sarpanch, around 100 families were dependent on the panchayat land as they did farming on this land. They had also claimed that the dairies would lead to unsanitary conditions in the village.
During the meeting, Suresh Kumar directed the District Administration to speed up the process related to the shifting of the dairies from the city to Gorsian Kadar Baksh village. He said AK Sinha, Principal Secretary, Local Government, Punjab, would personally visit Ludhiana on Tuesday and sort out the issues related to the shifting of the dairies from the city. He reiterated that all stakeholders should be on board over this issue and the panchayat of Gorsian Kadar Baksh village should be shown a prototype of the proposed dairy project at GADVASU that would be replicated at the village.
He further said that to ensure the timely completion of the Rejuvenation of Buddha Nullah project, the review meeting of the Task Force and all government departments would be held through video-conferencing every 15 days. He said the next such meeting would be held on April 5, 2021. He also directed all departments to ensure the completion of the works allocated to them in a time-bound manner.
Meanwhile, MC Commissioner Pardeep Kumar Sabharwal informed the task force members, that out of the 965 encroachments along the Buddha Nullah, 201 had been removed, whereas the remaining would be removed soon as the MC, Ludhiana is already on the job. He said encroachments from 3-km area had already been removed by the civic body.
Suresh Kumar also directed the MC Commissioner to ensure that the encroachments did not hamper the ongoing rejuvenation work of the contractor.
He said the construction of the 225 MLD sewerage treatment plant (STP) in the Jamalpur area of the city had started along with the work of installing chain link fencing on both sides of the 14-km stretch of Budha Nullah.
Mayor Balkar Singh Sandhu and DC Varinder Kumar Sharma were also present at the meeting.