Part of elevated U-turn towards MG Road to open for trial by Nov-end
NHAI officials said the portion of the flyover towards MG Road will be open on a trial basis before its official opening
The remaining portion of the elevated U-turn being constructed at Shankar Chowk to provide commuters coming from Sector 17/18 and Rajiv Chowk side passage towards Mehrauli-Gurgaon (MG) Road or the Jaipur side, is likely to be opened for trial by the end of this month, said officials from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).
The U-turn, they say, will open ‘officially’ on December 31.
“The flyover will be officially launched on December 31 alongside other projects at the junction,” Ashok Sharma, project director of NHAI, said.
However, NHAI officials conceded that they will open the flyover in advance for the trial run before the official opening, as this will allow them time to make engineering changes, if needed.
NHAI officials added that issue of overhead high-tension cables of Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam (HVPN) is no longer a hindrance to the remaining work on the flyover.
For residents, the flyover’s opening is a respite from the ongoing traffic woes.
The flyover will help commuters travelling from Sukhrali and Sector 17/18 towards Manesar or MG Road.
“At present, I have to take a turn below the flyover opposite CyberHub to head towards Manesar. The stretch is heavily congested on most days. Thus, the flyover’s opening will be a great relief, as it will not only allow me to evade traffic at this stretch, but also save on commuting time,” Gaurav Dhankhar, a resident of Manesar, said.
Major construction work is under way at Iffco Chowk and in areas in its vicinity, as part of a traffic improvement project that is set to revamp three crucial junctions on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway.
Read I MG Road-Delhi elevated U-turn at Iffco Chowk opens for trial run
A U-turn flyover allowing passage from MG Road to Sukhrali and New Delhi opened for trial on Wednesday. Apart from this, other infrastructure projects such as an underpass on MG Road for assisting helping commuters travelling from Iffco Chowk Metro station towards New Delhi and an elevated road at Iffco Chowk, allowing commuters on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway to avoid adding to the congestion at Iffco Chowk while heading towards Manesar are expected to open on December 31.
Elevated road opened briefly:
For a short duration in the morning hours, the elevated road near Iffco chowk flyover was being used by public after its barricaded points were missing and the stretch appeared to be open for trial use. The road was barricaded immediately after the authorities were made aware of its use. NHAI’s project director Ashok Sharma and DCP (traffic) Simardeep Singh, however, denied receiving any information on the matter and said ‘miscreants may have removed the barricades”. The elevated road serves as the connecting point between the two U-turn flyovers on MG Road side.