Punjab has finally moved to clear the Rs 1,878-crore Zirakpur-Panchkula bypass project, with the Forests Secretary recommending the long-pending Stage-2 forest clearance and forwarding the file to the Forests Minister for formal approval on Friday.

The move came hours after The Tribune carried a detailed report highlighting the inordinate delay by the Punjab Forest Department in granting the mandatory Stage-2 clearance even eight months after the project received approval from the Prime Minister-led Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA). The report had flagged that the file had remained with the Forests Secretary for nearly two weeks, during which he chose not to respond to repeated queries.

Confirming the development, a senior Punjab government official told  that the Forests Secretary has now recommended the clearance and sent the file to the Forests Minister for a formal nod. “Once the minister approves it, the process will move to the next stage,” the official said.

The delay in granting Stage-2 clearance had stalled the project despite the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) having met all stipulated conditions and cleared the observations raised by the Forest Department. The impasse had forced NHAI to postpone the bidding process repeatedly, with the authority announcing the sixth consecutive extension of bid deadlines earlier this week as it waited for the mandatory forest approval, without which the work cannot be awarded.

NHAI officials dealing with the project said that after the Forests Minister accords formal approval, the file will be sent to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change’s Integrated Regional Office (IRO), Chandigarh, for issuance of the final Stage-2 forest clearance certificate. “That should not take much time. Once the protected forests are formally declared, the clearance certificate can be issued, paving the way for award of work,” an official said.

The six-lane Zirakpur bypass, conceived over a decade ago and for which land acquisition was completed in 2020, is the most critical road infrastructure project for decongesting Tricity. Stretching 19.2 km from the Zirakpur-Patiala junction on NH-7 to the Zirakpur-Parwanoo junction on NH-5, the project includes a 6.195-km elevated section along with multiple flyovers, underpasses, bridges and a railway overbridge. It is designed to divert heavy inter-state and local traffic away from the chronically choked NH-5 and NH-7 corridor through Zirakpur and Panchkula and is also a key component of the upcoming Tricity Ring Road.

With the forest clearance file finally moving after months of stagnation, officials said the project is now closer to being awarded, raising fresh hopes that a long-delayed solution to Tricity’s daily traffic gridlocks may finally begin to take shape.