The Delhi Government on Thursday informed the Supreme Court about the timeline for removal of traffic bottlenecks at 77 “congested corridors” and said short term measures, like minor improvements in road geometrics to deal with the issue would take six to eight months.
Elaborating the measures for removing these bottlenecks, the AAP Government said these have been categorised as “short term” and “long term” measures and also gave reasons for traffic congestion in the national capital.
In its affidavit filed in the top court, the Delhi government said that under the long-term measures, six months time would be taken for approval of schemes and sanction of estimates for construction of subways, foot over bridges (FoBs), underpasses and u-turns and after grant of approval, another 12 months would be needed for execution of work.
“It is submitted that the measures to remove the above mentioned bottlenecks are categorised as short term measures and long term measures. The short term measures like minor improvements in road geometrics etc would take six to eight months,” it said.
“However the long term measures like FOB/subway/underpass /u-turn etc would take six months for approval of the scheme and sanction of the estimates. Thereafter, 12 months for execution after approval,” the affidavit said.
Advocate Wasim A Qadri, appearing for the Delhi government, mentioned the matter on Thursday before a bench comprising justices Madan B lokur and Deepak Gupta and said that they be allowed to file the affidavit. The bench allowed Qadri's request.
In its affidavit, the Delhi government said that the task force has identified 77 “congested corridors” in the national capital and has put them in three categories. It said that under category 'A', there were 28 highly congested corridors while category 'B' has 30 congested corridors.The rest 19 “less congested” corridors were placed under category 'C', it said.
The Delhi government's affidavit said that the Delhi Traffic Police has identified several “main causes” for congestion, which included encroachment on roads and on the footpaths, encroachment on central verge, illegal parking on roads, less width of roads, irregular pedestrian movement across roads and improper junction or intersection design.
Delhi government had told the bench that such corridors have been classified under three categories and at present, steps were being taken with respect to 11 out of 28 corridors falling under category.