News: New underpass, yet to be opened, on Gurugram-Delhi border gets flooded-29-07-2021
Gurugram: Water gushed into the new U-turn underpass being built by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) near Ambience Mall on the Delhi-Gurugram border after Wednesday morning's showers. This will delay the inauguration of the much-awaited underpass, which is now expected to be opened for traffic by August 15. Officials said since the underpass is still under construction, the flooding was caused due to water seeping in through some places, not a drainage problem.
Work on the underpass is nearly 99% complete. According to the highways authority, the contractor is focusing on desilting at present and the final work on the underpass, like black-topping of the stretch, painting and installing signage boards, will be done only after the rain stops.
“We are very sure that the underpass has to be opened by August 15. We had done the slab laying work on July 22 and it takes at least two weeks for the slabs to gain strength. Thereafter, we’ll have to do some final finishing work that won’t take more than a couple of days,” an NHAI official told TOI.
The completion of the underpass has been delayed by over a year now. Earlier this month, NHAI had said the underpass would be completed by July 31. A delay in the shifting of a gas pipeline, followed by Wednesday’s waterlogging, however, has forced it to once again push the deadline forward.
The overall project, including realignment of traffic diversions and restoration of the toll gates which were shifted to construct the box structure of the underpass, will take an additional two weeks.
The underpass will be opened by August 15 and the work on restoring the toll lanes and black-topping the stretch will take an additional 10-15 days. In totality, the project will be completed by the end of August,” the official added.
The Ambience Mall underpass is part of a project aimed at not only decongesting the Delhi-Gurugram expressway, but also helping commuters get to the mall without crossing the Delhi-Gurugram border near Sirhaul toll plaza. The first part of the project was the Shankar Chowk flyover, which was opened for traffic last year. Work on the underpass, however, has been lagging due to delay in the shifting of three toll gates and other utilities. TOI had earlier reported that even after a year of repeated follow-ups with the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), the civic body had failed to entertain NHAI’s request to shift the toll gates. It was only in January that SDMC submitted the cost estimates for the toll shifting.
