AMRITSAR: The Punjab Government is seriously considering a proposal to entrust the Military Engineering Service (MES) with the implementation of these 100crore Golden Temple project popularly known as the “corridor plan”.

The proposal has been mooted by the state Local Bodies Department following the refusal by various ground-level execution agencies of the government to take up the task on the spread of militants” threat.

A high-level meeting of officials of the government and semi government departments associated with the project was held in Chandigarh to review the progress of the implementation of the second phase of the project.

Chaired by the Director Local Bodies J.G.Mann the meeting was also attended by representative of Chief Khalsa Diwan.

Following a representation by a couple of Sikh organizations the slate government has shown fresh inclination to expedite the implementation of the project hanging fire for the past two and a half years

The state government has taken serious note of the statement of a senior official of the Amritsar district administration a month ago that the corridor plan had been shelved.

The meeting however ended in a fiasco having failed to arrive at any conclusion on the conceptual plan for the second phase of the project and the state agency to execute it.

Well-placed sources said that officials of the Amritsar Municipal Corporation and the Sewerage Board told Maini that they would not associate themselves with execution of the work because of the “threat to their lives” The director however tried in vain to first persuade and then force the officials concerned to take up the implementation of the project.

In view of the attitude of the ground-level execution agencies the meeting was told that the state government was not averse to the handing over of the work to the MES Maini gave an assurance that a detailed report on the progress of the project would be submitted to the Governor soon.

The authorities sources say are taking a fresh look at the conceptual plan prepared by the state Town Planning Department. They favor modifications in the plan rather than the drawing up of a new one.

Already more than six conceptual plans drafted by various central and state agencies have been put into cold storage as these were disapproved by either the government or the SGPC.

Dogged by several controversies and jinxed right from the beginning the corridor project which envisages the beautification and development of a 30meter area around the shrine had run into rough weather following the killing of a superintending engineer of the Sewerage Board associated with the task by militants more than a year ago. Subsequently the project execution agencies began dragging their feet.

Having failed to complete the second phase which envisaged the laying of sewer pipes setting up of a power substation and creation of other infrastructural facilities in the earmarked area the government planted the saplings of ornamental plants in the empty spaces.

Of the total of Rs 69 crore received by the municipal corporation for the second phase Rs 55 crore has already been spent on demolition and compensation. The corporation has with it a balance of Rs 15 crore the interest on which is being utilized by it. The SGPC president is on record as having said that the apex Sikh religious body would not cooperate with the government in the execution of the plan.

Article extracted from this publication >> September 27, 1991