Thermal plant employees demand slip road on national highway

RUPNAGAR:
HT Live Correspondent [email protected]

Employees of Guru Gobind Singh Thermal Plant, blocked traffic on national highway 21 near Malikpur village on Wednesday.
They were protesting against the failure of the authorities to construct a slip road from the recently constructed fourlane national highway to connect the road leading to the thermal plant.

The employees staged a dharna on the road and blocked traffic for about two hours.

While addressing the dharna various employee leaders said as there was no slip road from NH 21 leading to the plant, the employees had to face a lot of inconvenience and had to take a long route to reach it.

They alleged that despite their representations to various authorities, including Rupnagar deputy commissioner, no step was taken to provide the slip road forcing the employees to block the traffic. They warned that their agitation would be further intensified if the slip road was not provided immediately.

The dharna was addressed by employee leaders, including RTP Employees' Union president BS Saini, RTP Contractor Worker Union president RK Tiwari, Employees Federation president Harmesh Dhiman, PSEB Engineers Association leader RK Saini, JP Handa, Kanwaljit Singh, and Karnail Singh.

Later Rupnagar sub-divisional magistrate Puneet Goel and other civil and police officials also reached the traffic blockade site.

The SDM assured the protesters that the matter had been taken up with the authorities concerned and the work for the construction of the slip road would start soon. The employees lifted the blockade on the assurance of the SDM.