The Centre has convened an urgent meeting of all the stakeholders of the Meerut Expressway, which has missed the commissioning date of the Delhi leg. Upset with the delay, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari Gadkari has summoned officials of the central road making agency NHAI, concessionaires, Delhi Metro and the Delhi Police this week.
Gadkari had earlier announced that the Phase-I of Meerut Expressway within the territorial jurisdiction of Delhi on National Highway (NH) 24 ( between Nizamuddin and Ghazipur) would be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Republic Day.
“Civil work which includes completion of an underpass near Mother Dairy is still under progress, The heavy traffic flow on the stretch has hampered the work. The metro related projects on the NH 24 near Ghazipur has also created a bottleneck. The work had to also be stopped to address the rising pollution level in the wake of heavy smog in the Delhi NCR region, The contractors have now been asked to expedite. They have asked more man power to meet the March 31 deadline,” said a Road Ministry official.
The official said that a peeved Gadkari has called all the stakeholders to discuss major difficulty arising out of the construction work of elevated metro corridor over the stretch.
The Prime Minister had laid the foundation stone of the Rs 7,566 crore expressway on 31 December 2015, and thereafter he has been personally monitoring the project. Upset over the slow progress of the prestigious project. Modi had directed Cabinet Secretary PK Sinha to monitor the project and also rebuked the Road Ministry officials.
The 8.7km stretch of the first phase project involves a vertical garden being developed on the Yamuna bridge, solar system lighting, and dip irrigation for watering plants besides a new 4+4-lane major bridges across Yamuna. The entry to the expressway will be near CWG village, while the exit will be at Akshardham and Ghazipur.
The phase-II of the project involves a six-lane expressway and eight-laning from Delhi/UP Border to Dasna for 19.28km, while Phase-III will involve six-laning of NH-24 for 22.27km from Dasna to Hapur. Phase-IV will be for 31.70km of new greenfield alignment from Dasna to Meerut.