The first major maintenance work on the DND flyway is expected to seriously disrupt traffic in coming days. One-fourth of the Delhi-Noida carriageway will be closed for re-carpeting for a week from Saturday. Work will take two months to complete.
Nearly one lakh vehicles use the expressway everyday and the toll operator on Tuesday said an increasing number of cracks on both carriageways had been found.
One carriageway (Delhi to Noida) of the entire 6-km, four-lane road will be divided into four parts and each part will remain closed for seven days. During maintenance period, traffic will be diverted to the opposite carriageway (Noida to Delhi) and two lanes will remain reserved for the traffic going to Noida.
A loop will be constructed to connect both carriageways. Initially, the stretch from public utility to Yamuna Bridge will be closed.
The DND management will stop repairs during monsoons and will speed up work after the season in over. The authority will also deploy two dozen additional traffic marshals for the trouble patch. Signs and public addressing system will also be put in place to prevent hassles.
While stressing on redevelopment of the DND flyway, the operator pointed out that vehicular volume on DND flyway was increasing by leaps and bounds.
"We conducted a research work with the help of Delhi-based Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) and found that the recent condition of the DND flyway is not fulfilling international standards of road safety. As DND is considered as a key road of Delhi-NCR, it is the need of the hour to maintain standards. With the re-carpeting of the DND flyway, maintenance cost will be zero. We are going on lines of key roads in different countries," said Anwar Abbasi, spokesperson of DND toll plaza.
The flyway, with four lanes from each side, is a 6-km stretch between Maharani Bagh and Noida. It is the key route between Greater Noida and the National Capital.
This is the first time since its construction in 2001 that the DND management has decided to close the road for repairs.