Residents’ group demands underpass at Greater Noida’s Pari Chowk

Troubled by acute traffic congestion, commuters are urging the Greater Noida authority to build an underpass at the city’s busiest traffic intersection — Pari Chowk . Incidentally, the authority in 2018 had taken cognisance of the congestion problem at the junction, but nothing worthwhile happened on ground, alleged residents.

The Noida Expressway merges with the Kasna Road at the Pari Chowk junction and thousands of commuters from Noida, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad and Bulandshahr use the stretch daily. The traffic congestion goes from bad to worse during the peak hours every morning and evening, officials said.

“Pari Chowk is a major landmark and also a convergence point for traffic, not only from Noida, Ghaziabad and Greater Noida West, but also from Agra, Aligarh,Faridabad and neighbouring National Capital Region (NCR) cities. One side of Pari Chowk is out of bounds for traffic due to construction, forcing vehicles to take a detour via the Alpha commercial belt roundabout, but with the rapidly increasing traffic volume, the move is not helping commuters,” said Alok Singh, a founder member of Active Citizen, a residents’ welfare group.

“We are demanding an underpass from Alpha 1 till the P3 roundabout, which would immensely help ease congestion at P3 — a major jam point for the last several years. This would really go a long way in easing traffic and will not only benefit Greater Noida residents but also people travelling from nearby cities,” Singh added.

The Active Citizen group has also written to the Greater Noida authority for the immediate construction of an underpass.

Following demands from residents, the Greater Noida authority has asked the Central government agency Rail India Technical and Economic Service Limited (RITES) to conduct a detailed study and submit a report about rising traffic in the city and measures to tackle the same. The report is likely to be submitted in two months’ time.

“Currently, we do not have a plan to build an underpass on the Pari Chowk junction. But we will take a final decision after the report from RITES is submitted. The survey will help us in understanding the requirements for the junction. The important part is that we need to make city roads pedestrian-friendly first. We need to plan our infrastructure by keeping in mind that pedestrians do not face any hardships, while providing smooth passage to vehicles. We will address all concerns once the study is completed,” said Narendra Bhooshan, chief executive officer of the Greater Noida authority.