Dwarka Expressway, urban extn road 2 to be ready soon, says Gadkari

Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday said work of Dwarka Expressway will be completed soon and, once ready, it will ease the movement of commuters across the National Capital Region (NCR) and also to other states via the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway.

The Union minister said the completion of this road project and the urban extension road 2 (from Alipur in north Delhi to Mahipalpur) over the next six months will lead to a reduction in the traffic load on the Delhi-Jaipur national highway and significantly improve commuting across NCR.

Gadkari was in Gurugram on Monday for laying the foundation stone for the India International Cultural Centre to be established by the International Divya Parivar Society and Chanakya Varta Parivar in Sector 9A. He also attended the closing ceremony of the three-day cultural festival of India, a statement issued by the district administration said.

“The road project is in its last phase and will be operational soon. Once Dwarka Expressway is completed, the residents of Dwarka and Old Gurugram will be able to reach Jaipur via the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway in two hours,” the minister said.

The distance between Delhi and Jaipur is around 270km and it currently takes around three to four hours via the Delhi-Jaipur national highway.

The transport minister also said a network of eight lanes underground and eight lanes above ground is being constructed on this road near Shiv Murti in Delhi and this will ensure a faster commute for motorists going from Gurugram, Indira Gandhi International Airport, south and west Delhi to Chandigarh and beyond.

The minister also said the Outer Ring Road, also called urban extension road 2 from IGI airport to Alipur in north Delhi, will be completed in the next six months and it will reduce the travel time between the two points to 20 minutes from the present two to three hours.

Dwarka Expressway is being constructed in four packages and of the 29km, 18.9km fall in Haryana and remaining 10.1km in Delhi. The work on the project started in 2018 and is likely to be completed by the end of the year. The road was originally slated to be completed in 2021 but due to the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, the deadlines were extended.

With the Union transport minister directing the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) officials to complete the project by the end of the year, the highways authority and contractors said they have stepped up pace of work to meet the deadlines.

The NHAI chairman reviewed the Gurugram section of the expressway on July 22, and directed NHAI and local officials to expedite work and also remove bottlenecks in connecting it with sector roads.

A senior official of the project contractor on Monday said that while the work on package three and four is almost complete, it will take another few months to connect it with the Delhi section where the toll plaza will come up under package two.

“The NHAI chairman is likely to visit the Dwarka Expressway site again on August 4 along with member, secretary, NHAI to take stock of the work and also to launch the plantation drive for greening the clover leaf near Kherki Daula and the remaining road,” he said.

Rajendra Singh Rawat, project manager of J Kumar infrastructure, which is building package one and two of the Dwarka Expressway said 90% work on package one has been completed. “The work on package two is almost 70% complete and we are working hard to ensure that the entire road is completed by the end of the year,” he said.