Transportation in Punjab

What is the Transportation Sector?

• Transportation is the movement of people and goods from one place to another. The term is derived from the Latin terms trans (across) and portare (to carry).
• Technically, transportation is a sub-group of the industrial sector. The transportation sector consists of several industries including air freight and logistics, airlines, marine, road and rail, and transportation infrastructure.

Means of Transportation

People use various means of transportation such as Land, Air, and Water, which are the major modes of transportation in India:

1. Land: Road Transport is one of the most important modes of transport. The history of Road Transport started from ancient civilizations. It includes rail, road, and pipeline.
2. Water: Water transport is the cheapest and the oldest form of transport for heavy goods and bulk cargoes. Water transport can be divided into two major categories, inland waterways, and oceanic waterways.
3. Air: Air transport is the gift of the twentieth century to the world. It is the latest means of transport. The first flight in the air was made in 1903. Air travel is the fastest means to reach any part of the world.

Transportation in Punjab

Transport services in the State consist of two modes of transportation:

1. Land
2. Air

As Punjab is a landlocked state, the scope of water transport in the state is restricted.

Land Transport

The transport sector in Punjab is driven by road transport, followed by railways. The Road network is the backbone of the transport sector in the State. Its dominance is further established by the fact that other modes of transportation like railways depend on it for their first/last mile linkages. Upgradation of the existing infrastructure is thereby significant to the State for continued economic growth.

Development of roads in Punjab is handled by four institutions:

1. National Highways are looked after by the Government of India
2. State highways by the State Public Works Department(PWD)
3. Town roads by the Municipal bodies
4. Rural roads partly by PWD and partly by the Rural Development Department.

Roads

More than 90% of Punjab’s roads are surfaced as on 31st March, 2019. Also, Punjab has one of the highest road densities among select states. The State had a total road length of 1,47,862 Kms by the end of 2018-19. As of March 2023, Punjab had 3639.68 km of National Highways and 847.81 km of State Highways.

All the major cities of Punjab are connected with four or six-lane roads. Some details of National and State highway that passes through Punjab are:

Table Of National and State Highways

Table 9.1

Railways

Railway work had been started in Undivided Punjab in 1855. The first Railway Line in the Punjab region commenced from Amritsar to Mulan on 8th February 1859. The Railway network in Punjab is well-developed with a 2,823 km Running Track accounting for 2.75% of the total railway network in India. Punjab is also a part of the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC), which is a 1,856 km long freight line extending from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni in West Bengal.

Civil Aviation

Development, promotion, and regulation of Civil Aviation in the State comes under the purview of the Department of Civil Aviation. At present there are Six airports in the State located in S.A.S Nagar (joint venture), Amritsar, Bhatinda, Ludhiana, Pathankot and Patiala.

The government undertook various initiatives to promote Civil Aviation, such as:

1. Development of International civil air terminal at Indian Air Force station, Halwara Ludhiana
2. Regional Connectivity Scheme-UDAN: The Department of Civil Aviation on behalf of Government of Punjab coordinates with the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India to successfully implement the RCS-UDAN30. The primary objectives of the Scheme are:
3. To facilitate regional air connectivity by making it affordable through fiscal support.
4. Infrastructure development
5. To establish an integrated ecosystem which will lead to significant growth of the Civil Aviation Sector, promote tourism, increase employment, and provide socio economic boost.
6. Under this scheme Government of Punjab has developed various Civil Enclave, namely:
7. Civil Enclave at Bhatinda
8. Civil Enclave at Adampur, Jalandhar

      iii. Civil Enclave at Pathankot

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