The year 2022 will pave the way for two key road projects to be opened for traffic, Union minister Nitin Gadkari said on Thursday. One of them is the long-delayed Dwarka Expressway and the other is the elevated road between Gurugram and Sohna.
“The 30km, 8-lane, access-controlled Dwarka Expressway, which is being constructed at a cost of Rs 10,000 crore, will be completed in 2022,” the minister for road transport and highways, who was in the city to inspect construction of the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway near Lohatki village, told reporters.
The Dwarka Expressway, announced in 2007, was envisioned as a northern ring road connecting Gurugram and Delhi but remained mired in litigation and land disputes for years. While 18.1km of the expressway is in Haryana, the remaining 9.5km is in Delhi.
After all hurdles were cleared, work on the expressway began in full swing only in 2019. But the pandemic and the ban on construction because of rising pollution levels during the winters slowed it down. In March this year, work was held up after a portion of an elevated section of the Dwarka Expressway near Daultabad flyover collapsed.
Speaking about the probe into the collapse, Gadkari said that in such cases, “a committee is appointed and an investigation is done”. “Sometimes, it is a bona fide mistake, at other times, it is mala fide. If the mistakes are bona fide, we need to rectify them and forgive them. But if the mistakes are mala fide, we need to take stern action…. We should be judicious, transparent, time-bound, result-oriented, and fair. If somebody does something wrong, they will be punished. And if there is a technical mistake, we need to rectify, improve the technology, and solve the problem,” said Gadkari.
The Sohna elevated road, which originates at Rajiv Chowk and is part of the larger Delhi-Alwar corridor and will connect with Delhi-Mumbai Expressway in Sohna, is likely to be opened for traffic in the first half of next year. “The six-lane, 5km-long elevated road is being constructed on the Gurugram-Sohna route at a cost of around Rs 1,700 crore. It will be completed by March 2022,” Gadkari said.
Source : TOI
