After long wait of eight years, the commuters will finally have a reason to smile as the ambitious flyover project of North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NMC) ‘Rani Jhansi Grade separator’ is all set to be open to the public in March this year. This project, which original deadline was 2010 before the Commonwealth Games, has suffered inordinate delays in completion owing to several hiccups, price escalation and red-tapism.
A senior NMC official told The Pioneer that 95 per cent of works have been completed. “We have deployed more manpower who is working day and night to ensure the project be completed before March,” he said.
The project was delayed due to the multiple agencies responsible for removing roadblocks. The very fact that the main bottlenecks at Filmistan crossing and Azad Market took almost eight years to be completed tells the sordid saga of bureaucratic and political apathy. The continuous deadline breach has escalated the project cost by Rs 547 crore more than the originally sanctioned one. The cost originally was pegged at Rs 177 crore that further increased to Rs 724 crore.
North Delhi Mayor Preety Agarwal said, “We have put all the necessary efforts to achieve deadline this time and it will be inaugurated in March.” The horticulture department of the NMC has already started plantations under the flyover, she added.
However, leader of the Opposition in NMC Rakesh Kumar accused the BJP-led corporation of delaying it and said not even a single promise made by it has been fulfilled. He also said that he does not think that the project is not going to be completed in March.
The 1.6-km-long flyover from near St Stephen’s Hospital to Filmistaan Cinema once completed would be open for vehicular movement towards ISBT, Kashmiri Gate, and Mori Gate etc. to the citizens particularly of Shakti Nagar, Karol Bagh, Gulabi Bagh, Kamla Nagar, Sadar Bazar, Paharganj, Azad Market and surrounding areas.
Explaining the roadblocks that led to delay, NMC official said, “It was also delayed mainly due to delay in land acquisition and exchange of land with Railways.” The decision to demolish and relocate five religious structures that fall in the way of the flyover had also expedited the project, the official added.
Engineers and officials involved in this project said the heavy traffic at Azad market, earlier slowed down the progress. Officials of engineering department said they faced a lot of difficulties in lifting 45-tonne segments using heavy cranes to connect the pillars. “The department could work only for three to four hours and that too becomes difficult due to the continuous movement of heavy vehicles during the night. Now, it is almost done and remaining parts is expected to be completed by March,” they said.
The project was conceived in 1998 but was commissioned by the erstwhile MCD in 2006. The construction work started in 2007 and has been in the pipeline since then. The agencies, responsible for removing bottlenecks, kept indulging in passing the buck for years instead of finding solutions, leading to the delay.