Aimed at decongesting the National Capital Region (NCR) and reducing pollution levels, the Dwarka Expressway is expected to be ready by March, Road Transport and Highways secretary Anurag Jain said on Friday.
Speaking to the media, Jain added that only a small portion of the project, a tunnel near the airport, will take longer as they had to change its plan at the last moment.
“As far as I understand, the project will be ready by March, except for one of the tunnels. The project has two tunnels – one from Shiv Murti, which was part of the original project. There was an additional tunnel for those going to the airport. Except for the airport tunnel, all work will be completed in this quarter,” he said.
Explaining the reason behind the delay, he added that firstly, the tunnel was added at a later stage and then its design had to be changed after some demand from the airport authorities.
Being constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 9,000 crore, the Dwarka Expressway was scheduled to be completed by April 2024.
It was planned as an alternate road link between Delhi and Gurgaon, aimed at easing the traffic flow on Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway.
The expressway will start from Shiv Murti in Delhi and will terminate at Kherki Dhaula on NH8 in Gurgaon, completely bypassing the existing congestion on NH-8. It is the Phase I or the northern part of the Gurgaon Ring Road.
The expressway is one of the much awaited projects for people of the two cities. It was initially planned in 2006, but was stuck due to a number of reasons including land acquisition.
The 34 km-long expressway will be India’s first eight-lane fully access-controlled urban expressway with six-lane service road.
The Dwarka Expressway is being built in five packages – 5.9 km between Shiv Murti Intersection near Mahipalpur till Rail under Bridge (RuB) near Dwarka Sector 21; 4.2 km between RuB to Haryana border; 10.2 km between Haryana border and Basai rail overbridge (ROB) in Dawrka; 8.8 km between Basai RoB to NH-8 – SPR intersection; and 5 km for airport connectivity from Dwarka through a tunnel.
The project has four interchanges with four-lane service roads at intersections, while it has three-lane service roads in the remaining parts.
Source : News 18