The East-West and North-South elevated BRT corridors have been given in-principle approval and are awaiting approval from the lieutenant-Governor, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Tuesday. Kejriwal added that while one lane on the elevated corridor will be dedicated to buses, two lanes will be available for cars which will have to pay a toll tax to use the corridor.
“The two corridors have been given in-principle approval on a pilot basis. While it will take a few years for these projects to complete once the construction begins, but if these two projects take off this year, then next year, we are planning to conceptualise a web of elevated corridors across Delhi,” Kejriwal said during a public meeting on air pollution organised by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).
Kejriwal added that the project will be taken up on a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model so that the cost of construction could be recovered from the use of the corridors.
“In the two proposed elevated corridors, one lane will be for buses while two other lanes will be for private vehicles. However, the private vehicles will have to pay a toll tax to use the elevated corridors, making travelling by private cars much more expensive than traveling by buses. The toll tax paid by the private cars will help in recovering the construction cost of the project as well. However, buses will be completely toll-tax free,” Kejriwal said.
Kejriwal also added that apart from the two new projects, the Government is also redesigning ten roads on a pilot basis. “Eventually, we plan to redesign all the PWD roads. And next year, if people vote for us in the municipal corporation polls, we will redesign municipal roads as well,” he said.
While one of the corridors will stretch from Anand Vihar Terminal to Peeragarhi (also called East-West Corridors), the other will be from Wazirabad to Airport (also called North-South Corridor).