Delhi: Cold last hurdle between Pragati Maidan corridor, Feb 15 deadline

Though over 95% work on the project is complete, they are yet to fix the road surface in the tunnel since the cold weather is not conducive for the use of bituminous construction material which is the key ingredient laying coaltar-asphalt roads.

Construction work on the 1.2-km-long Pragati Maidan tunnel project and six underpasses under the integrated transit corridor development plan for Pragati Maidan is expected to be completed by February 15, government officials overseeing the key infrastructure project said.

The tunnel road goes beneath Pragati Maidan, starting near National Sports Club of India on Purana Qila Road and ends on the Ring Road near the Pragati power station. (Arvind Yadav/HT)

However, the deadline would be met only if the ongoing extreme cold conditions abate soon, they added.

The officials explained that though more than 95% work on the project has been completed, they are yet to fix the road surface in the tunnel since the cold weather is not conducive for the use of bituminous construction material which is the key ingredient laying coaltar-asphalt roads.

The tunnel road and six underpasses — five on Mathura Road and one on Ring Road — will decongest the roads around Pragati Maidan which is being redeveloped. The tunnel road goes beneath Pragati Maidan, starting near National Sports Club of India on Purana Qila Road and ends on the Ring Road near the Pragati power station.

The project is also expected to cut traffic jams for at more than 100,000 commuters who use the key arterial roads. The Bhairon Marg section will also face less traffic congestion after the opening of this tunnel. Two of the five underpasses on Mathura Road are near Sundar Nagar and three are between Pragati Maidan and Supreme Court. The underpass on the Ring Road connects it with Bhairon Marg.

A senior government official said the work on the underpasses and the tunnel “is in very advanced stage”.

“The civil work in both tunnels and underpasses is complete, and an informal deadline for completion of remaining electrification/lighting, artwork and road surfacing has been fixed at February 15. We will carry out the safety audit of underpasses along with Delhi Traffic Police in the second half February,” the official said.

The bitter cold that has gripped Delhi through January, leading to several weeks where the maximum temperature has been unrelenting, has caused the second coldest spell of winter recorded in the city in more than seven decades, and the coldest start to a year in 19 years, HT reported on Tuesday.

Delhi is also currently also in the middle of the sixth longest spell of consecutive days since 1951 where the day temperature has been significantly below levels considered normal, according to the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) gridded data set.

A senior official of the Public Works Department said if the agency goes ahead and use hot asphalt mix to lay roads, they won’t last long. “An optimum temperature of at least 14-15 degrees Celsius is required for laying good quality bituminous surface roads. The project is in final stage, and the extremely cold condition is the last hurdle in its completion. Most of the hot mix plants are located outside Delhi and we need to factor in the travelling time and subsequent cooling of asphalt mix too,” the official explained.

The project has so far missed six deadlines with the agency citing flooding of underpasses during monsoon and ban on operation of hot mix plants and stone crushers in Delhi NCR during November and December 2021 on account of rise in air pollution levels as some of the reasons behind the delays.

PWD estimates show that the ITO-bound traffic on the stretch is around 62,000 passenger car unit (PCU) per day and Bhairon Marg users account for 57,000 PCUs per day.

PCU is a vehicle unit used for expressing highway capacity.

Dr. S Velmurugan chief scientist, Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) said the tunnel and the underpasses are estimated to reduce the congestion in the region by at least 15%-30%.

“The project will help reduction in traffic on key arterial roads that lead to the stretch from east and south Delhi. The congestion nodes at Bhairon Marg and Sunder Nagar will be relieved. The Pragati Maidan corridor is a very important project which will be helpful in reduction of traffic in central Delhi while facilitating movement from south, south east and east Delhi,” he added.

Velmurugan said the agency may use cold and warm mix technologies for road laying to reduce the road construction time during winters.

Prof Sewa Ram, professor of transport planning in the School of Planning and Architecture, said the project may play a key role in de-cluttering central Delhi. “The main tunnel directly provides connectivity between Ring road and Mathura Road both of which face frequent traffic snarls. The link will make for a smoother flow of vehicles on both the arterial roads. It also provides regional traffic connectivity for commuters moving from east towards central Delhi. The impact will be felt up to the end point of Barapullah where new congestion nodes have emerged near Lodhi Road and AIIMS,” he added.

The construction work on the integrated corridor started in 2017 and its first deadline was March 2019, after which five more deadlines have been missed so far.