The pedestrians who could be seen hopping around to cross North Delhi's busy Civil Lines area , would be breathing easy as the Public Works Department (PWD) has taken a decision to construct a Foot OverBridge (FOB) at Metcalf House main gate of the Ring Road. This stretch is infamous for accidents and one of the accident prone zones in the national Capital.
According to Delhi Traffic Police, the road falls under Central and New Delhi District and is accident prone area. "It is good that the PWD is constructing FOB as that would help in better traffic arrangement. There are 10 black spots in the Central Zone and pedestrians are the one who become the victim of accidents while crossing the busy road as they don't have any alternate way to cross the road," said a Traffic Police official.
As per the traffic data, a total of 81 accidents have taken place on the C&ND Road, out of which 31 were fatal accidents and 52 simple accidents. The construction of FOB will be constructed under the C&ND (Central and New Delhi District) division. In a recent meeting, the PWD got the administrativee and financial approval for carrying out the work for construction of FOB at Metcalf House Ring Road.
Currently, there are approximately 50 subways and 73 Foot over Bridges (FOB) located in different parts of Delhi for the use of pedestrians.
The budget for the construction of foot over bridge is estimated at Rs 2.43 crore. "A proposal for the construction FOB was moved October and November, which was approved in a recently held meeting. The department has assigned the work to the concerned officials for completing the modalities that includes inviting tenders," said a PWD official.
Further, the PWD is also set to construct around 17 FOBs in other accident
prone areas across the city under the mass traffic de-congestion project to ease the movement of pedestrians, the official added.