Delhi witnessed the inauguration of two major projects, with the hallmark being their completion before their scheduled deadlines — a rarity for Government schemes — in a couple of days.
On Saturday, Union Minister for Road, Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari inaugurated a four-lane flyover at NH 8 near the busy Dhaula Kuan to ease commuting to Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA). The flyover has been completed in just 136 days at Rs 270 crore.
Just a couple of days ago, Gadkari inaugurated an underpass and a flyover at Mahipalpur junction that was again a standout as it was completed a month before its scheduled deadline.
The Dhaula Kuan flyover project is in addition to the nine other projects being implemented for decongesting Delhi-NCR.
According to officials, the work on the project started in March 2018, out of which work could not be executed on 136 days on account of security restrictions and environmental prohibitions.
“With this flyover, the waiting time at the traffic light will reduce by 30 minutes at peak hours. NHAI has taken up the development of a signal-free corridor from Dhaula Kuan interchange to IGI airport,” Gadkari said.
The project had huge challenges in terms of traffic management of about 3 lakhs PCUs (passenger car units) per day, presence of a large number of civil and defence utilities, shifting of defence infrastructure and getting security clearances.
The Minister said this flyover is the first step towards developing a signal-free corridor to the IGIA and efforts are on to complete all other projects on the corridor in the next three months.
“We have undertaken road projects worth Rs 50,000 crore in Delhi... Pollution was a major problem in Delhi...So is traffic jam... We are working to reduce pollution. On Yamuna, we have undertaken projects worth Rs 5,000 crore. Delhi will get rid of pollution,” Gadkari said.
Besides the flyover, the complete signal-free Dhaula Kuan-Airport corridor consists of widening of Dhaula Kuan-IGI corridor from six-lane to eight-lane, a three-lane flyover from Janakpuri road to merge with NH-8, three-lane vehicular underpass at Parade Road junction.
The other projects which is the part of the decongestion plan of Delhi include the 22-km, 6-lane elevated corridor on Gurugram-Sohna Road where work has started; 8-lane Delhi-Panipat highway from Mukarba Chowk to Panipat on NH-1 with 48 per cent work done; the 29-km, 8-lane access controlled Dwarka Expressway with work started; package II, III and IV of Delhi-Meerut Expressway, where package II is 36 per cent done, package III in 76 per cent done and package IV is 32 per cent done; 4 laning of 124-km Khekra-EPE junction to Shamli-Saharanpur; Rangpuri Bypass to connect Dwarka/NH-08 with Vasant Kunj-Nelson Mandela Road; 75 km Urban Extension Road third Ring Road for Delhi under Bharatmala, 6-lane access controlled corridor from Akshardham NH24 Junction to EPE Junction on Baghpat Road.