News: Sohna elevated road, Dwarka Expressway to be ready next year, says Gadkari-17-09-2021
Gurgaon: 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 Gurgaon 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 Gurgaon 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 the 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.
He said his office had received a report regarding the collapse. “We will take required action,” the minister added.
The Sohna elevated road, which originates at Rajiv Chowk and is part of the larger Delhi-Alwar corridor and will connect with the 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 Gurgaon-Sohna route at a cost of around Rs 1,700 crore. It will be completed by March 2022,” Gadkari said.
At the meeting, discussions were also held about improving connectivity between Faridabad and the Noida International Airport, which is being built in Jewar, via the Eastern Peripheral Expressway.
It was chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar who brought up the issue. The CM said, “A small stretch will have to be made to connect Faridabad to the Eastern Peripheral Expressway so that it also gets linked to the Jewar airport. An interchange can be made at Chhaysa village for this so that Faridabad also benefits from the Eastern Peripheral Expressway.”
Taking up this suggestion, Gadkari assured that work on this project would begin this year itself.
“We have approved the land acquisition for that as well and work will begin this year itself,” he said.
