Following the Delhi High Court’s clearance to the proposed three-lane flyover parallel to Rao Tula Ram (RTR) flyover, the Public Works Department has awarded a tender to a company for construction of the 2.3-km-long flyover. The new flyover is expected to end the perennial traffic congestion problem on the RTR Marg leading to National Highway-8. The new one way flyover will commence from the existing Munirka flyover and run parallel to the RTR flyover before descending near Niryat Bhawan and land just before NH-8.
The total cost of the project is estimated at around Rs278 crore. The Delhi Urban Art Commission (DUAC) and UTTIPEC (an engineering body of DDA) have already approved the project.
The project was conceived during the previous Sheila Dikshit Government after repeated complaints over traffic snarls due to the single carriageway of the RTR flyover. The RTR Marg flyover has been the subject of considerable debate — and the reason for a traffic nightmare — ever since a handful of Palam Marg residents, whose bungalows face the road, opposed the takeover of a service lane outside their homes for the flyover project. The flyover was reduced to a single carriageway, resulting in traffic bottlenecks and daily chaos.
According to officials, the new flyover will be a portal structure in the shape of an inverted ‘U’ which will have a nine-metre carriageway.
PWD chief engineer Sarvagya Srivastava told The Pioneer that work on the new flyover is expected to start from December 2014 and it would be completed by December 2016. “To avoid traffic mess during construction, a new arterial road from Munirka to Mahipalpur has been built by the DDA,” he said.
It is worth mentioning here that the Government was looking for solutions to fix the problem after complaints of vehicular mess between Vasant Vihar and National Highway 8 along the Outer Ring Road in South Delhi. The half built flyover-with single carriageway divided into two-way become narrow and caused traffic congestions in front of Army Research and Referral Hospital and adjacent areas. The proposed underpass on the Benito Juarez Marg-Ring Road T-junction will also help reduce traffic snarls.
The plan for the underpass, in consultation with DMRC, will allow traffic from Benito Juarez Marg to turn to Ring Road towards Moti Bagh or go to San Martin Marg towards Defence Officers Enclave.
It is noted that five years ago, the Outer Ring Road’s South Delhi stretch was one of the most congested roads in the city. Five years and a series of flyovers later, the traffic on the stretch remains where it earlier was - in a snarl. The road is the gateway to the city as traffic bound to and from the Indira Gandhi International Airport uses this stretch. People hoped that the stretch would become signal-free as the Delhi Government promised several flyovers to decongest the area.
One by one, flyovers appeared at IIT Gate, Munirka and RTR intersection. The hope of a signal-free, dream drive, however, could not be met. The RTR flyover turned out to be the weakest link in this string of flyovers. The 900-metre flyover, opened to public in October 2009, was a single carriageway one unlike the two others in the series. Instead of catering to traffic coming from both directions, it was meant to serve only vehicles coming from Gurgaon and the airport. The traffic snarls on the stretch during the rush hours are such that its effect spills over to connecting roads leading from Moti Bagh, RK Puram and Vasant Vihar that join the Outer Ring Road.