The sector boasts of the beautiful Gurdwara Bagh Shaheedan, which is built close to the site where Baba Sukha Singh and Baba Harkirat Singh were martyred fighting the Mughals; a Garden of Annuals with trees flowering through the year; and the city’s first
From page 01 CHANDIGARH: One of the first army housing projects in the city came up over here, offering units to both senior and junior personnel. But that’s not all. Sector 44 is also home to banking and insurance personnel as well as advocates, journalists, doctors, architects and engineers.
Inaugurated in 2003 and maintained by six gardeners, this is one spot where children, the elderly and couples gather for chats, leisurely walks or sports (for the young of course).
“You will find flowers such as calendula, dahlia, pansy, carnation, marigold, salvia and more,” says Harchand Singh, junior engineer at the horticultural department.
Summer annuals include balsam, cosmos, kochia, nicotiana and cockscomb. There are 40 beds for flowers in all over here, Singh adds. SPACE FOR EVERYONE
Sector 44 has 216 army flats. “It’s the first such project in a residential area to come up in 1984 in the city,” says Kamini Sharma, president of the Sector-44 Army Flats Resident Welfare Association. Army personnel from the ranks of brigadiers to subedars live here.
Life Insurance Corporation officials have about 50 to 60 units here and about 100 housing units are for officials of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and other banks. RBI also has some vacant land allotted for flats.
Interestingly, the sector has the maximum number of leasehold houses under the Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB). “Around 2,000 houses in all the four blocks of the sector are under the CHB, and we have been fighting to get these converted to freehold,” says VK Nirman, president, Sector 44 D Resident Welfare Association.
FOR ALL COMMUNITIES
People of all faiths have their own place of worship here. Gurdwara Bagh Shaheedan makes for a historically significant site for the Sikh community as it’s built close to the site in Burail village where Baba Sukha Singh and Baba Harkirat Singh were martyred while fighting against tyrant Mughal rulers in 1769. It was built on a spot earlier known as Mahanta Da Bagh in the memory of Baba Sukha Singh and the other martyrs. Baba Banda Singh Bahadur is also believed to have visited the spot with his army.
Another place of religious importance here is the First Baptist Church of Chandigarh, which was founded in 1980 by Pastor Nazir Masih, his journey to faith in Christ beginning while he was a young child.
From its humble beginnings with just three families meeting in a small apartment, it now has a large campus that was built in 1988.
Shri Laxmi Narayan Mandir in Sector 44 C is dedicated to the goddess Laxmi and Narayan, another name for Vishnu.
TEMPLES OF EDUCATION Planned as a self-contained unit as envisaged by Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, Sector 44 has six senior secondary schools, including St Joseph’s Senior Secondary School, The British School, St Xavier’s Senior Secondary School, Government Model Senior Secondary School and Chandigarh Baptist School.
And when it comes to health care, the Urban Health Training Centre, which comes under the department of community medicine of Government College and Hospital (GMCH), caters to the residents of sectors 43, 44 and the adjoining JJ Colony.
INVASION OF THE CROWDS Old-timers feel the sector has become a little crowded now. Some years ago people could actually ride cycles in the cycle lanes, something that’s almost impossible in the rush hours now because of the traffic. “There has been no improvement. We have failed Corbusier and his idea of planned city,” says Gulshan Girdhar, a resident. “Earlier, you could see people going on cycles and buses in the morning and after that roads would be empty because everyone was at their place of work after 10am,” says Girdhar. “There used to be buses for every place, from Central Secretariat to Vidhan Sabha and recently I saw a bus with just two passengers, which was sad,” says PDS Uppal, a local resident. Open spaces too are shrinking says TS Thukral, a member of the Sector 44 B RWA and retired chief electrical engineer from Northern Railways.
ABUZZ WITH ACTIVITY
The Sector 44D Market is a hub of activity with fancy eating joints and dhabas, mostly attracting students renting out apartments and rooms here.
Locals swear by the jalebis, says property dealer Ramesh Duggal of Duggal Estates, one of the first shops to come up here. He recommends the samosas too and says “this is the best time of the year to savour the snacks from the Guru Nanak Sweet Shop.” The market used to get a huge student crowd some years ago because of coaching institutes, which have now moved to Sector 34,” he adds.
