Punjab/Ludhiana news- State level architects meet held to discuss Ludhiana problems and solutions

Ludhiana, September 21, 2013: The Executive Committee meeting of Indian Institute of Architects (IIA)-Chandigarh-Punjab Chapter was held on Saturday in Ludhiana for the first time.
The meeting was attended by office-bearers from various including Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Patiala and Bathinda.
Manmohan Khanna, Chairman IIA-Chandigarh-Punjab Chapter chaired the meeting and discussed in detail about the past, present and future activities of IIA. He was extremely grateful to all the architect members for successfully taking part in Chapter activities in the past. He applauded the role of Sanjay Goel from Ludhiana, who is also the Joint Secretary in the Chapter, for working hard for the upliftment of the profession. Goel has also requested the Union Government through Manish Tewari, to form a Ministry of Architecture in the country.
Surinder Bahga, who is the Chairman of IIA Publication Board, India, explained the details about the upcoming ARCHIBUILD 2013 which is to be held in Chandigarh from September 27-29 in collaboration with PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He also discussed about the impending Pakistan visit.
Ludhiana is the major upcoming metropolis in North India, but unfortunately it is not being taken care of, by the administrative authorities ardently. There should be a single agency like the Ludhiana Development Authority that would work in the planning and development of the city in a proper way. Now it is being looked after by numerous agencies like LMC, GLADA, LIT, PSIEC, HOUSEFED, PUDA, PWD, etc and these agencies have negligible coordination resulting in delayed as well as poor implementation of town planning and other decisions. Ludhiana city is in the neighborhood of one of the most beautiful cities of the world which is Chandigarh, but sadly authorities have been unable to learn anything from the positives of that city. Rather, administrative authorities are regularly visiting other countries to learn and implement better strategies, but that also has not happened so far. Ludhiana is the financial capital of Punjab, but till today it does not have upto the mark infrastructure, which includes bus stand, railway station, airport, proper roads and flyovers, metro trains, proper water supply and sewage treatment system, effective traffic regulations and transportation facilities, green areas, etc.
Due to the negligence of the authorities the pollution of every type like water, air and noise is increasing day by day instead of decreasing, as recently pointed out by the Pollution Board data. The pollution generated by the industries, Buddah Nullah and traffic noise is not coming to an end. Ludhiana has maximum density of vehicles in North India leading to extreme traffic congestions. Moreover the roads are being encroached upon, adding to the woes further. Even till today Ludhiana is not a railway crossing free city, whereas Delhi was made railway crossing free almost 30 years back. This shows the slow progress of work in the city.
Preferably, authorities should first complete and control the existing problems rather than starting new projects. For instance, the covering of Buddah Nallah, the completion of City Centre, Indoor Stadium, Ring Road, Lakkar Pull Flyover, Southern Bypass, etc should be completed at the earliest.
Architects and town planners present in the meeting suggested to the authorities to make a time bound plan for implementation of the true master plan of the city at the earliest without any political interference.
The meeting was attended by architects including Harinder Boparai, Rajan Tangri, Yogesh Singla, Balbir Bagga, Bimaldeep Singh, Baljit Bawa, Dinesh Bhagat, Irwindeep Singh, Jaswinder Jit, Anmol Papneja and Hemant Bhandari from across the state.