Chandigarh is one of the well planned cities of India which serves as the capital of two states, Punjab and Haryana. Apart from this, the city itself serves as a Union Territory that comes under the direct control of the Central Government of India. India was partitioned after its independence and during the partition Punjab was divided into two portions. Lahore that served s the capital city of Punjab was taken over along with the Pakistan part of Punjab.  Therefore the need for building a new capital for Punjab became necessary. So the work was started by the then prime minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru.

The excavations carried out in 1950s and 1960s near Chandigarh reveal that the city was inhabited since 6000 B.C. It flourished during the times of the Harappan civilization. The place for building the city was selected by the then Deputy Commissioner of Ambala named Dr. M.S. Randhawa. However there existed 58 villages with 6228 households who protested against the initiative. A newly formed committee campaigned against the formation of the city and so the government had to slow down its efforts. The works were restarted only after two years.

The Government of Punjab appointed the American planner Albert Mayor in December 1949 to draft the plan. He drafted the blueprint with the assistance of the architect Matthew Nowicki. The city was planned as though it was placed between two rivers with the third sector at the base of the Shivalik hills. The two supervisors appointed to look after the project were P.N. Thapar and P.L. Verma. Both of them liked the plan very much and wanted to implement that. The work was given to the European architect Le Corbusier for completion.

The city covered an area of 114.59 square kilometers. It had super blocks which were further divided into three parts. The city was planned to have separate sectors for houses, colleges, hospitals, malls and other basic necessities. The roads were broad and straight and the city had all the features of a modern city built on innovative lines.

Chandigarh was made as the capital of Punjab. However, Punjab had to be repartitioned based on linguistic lines. The people living in the eastern part of Punjab were Hindi speakers while the rest were a Sikh majority who spoke Punjabi. So on 1^st November 1966, the new state of Haryana was carved out of Punjab. At that time, Chandigarh was made as the capital of Haryana also as it was situated on the border of these two states. An agreement was made that after the establishment of a new capital for Haryana Chandigarh must be handed over to Punjab. But this was not fulfilled as some of the terms were not resolved.

The members of the city building committee are P.N. Thapar, P.L. Verma, Dogra, M.N. Sharma, Eulie Choudary, A.R. Prabhakavalkar, Aditya Prakash, Jeet Malhotra, B.P. Mathur, J.S. Dithe and N.S. Lamba. Manmohan Singh, Kapil Dev Ramlal Nikhaj, Sabeer Bhatia and Jeev Mikha Singh are some of the well known personalities from Chandigarh. Capitol Complex, Open Hand, Sukhna Lake, Rock Garden and Government Museum and Art Gallery are some of the places of interest here. The Chandigarh photos and Chandigarh videos will reveal these wonderful attractions.

Article Posted By : Sumazla  On February 23, 2012lView All Articles

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Chandigarh , Chandigarh photos , Chandigarh videos