South Delhi’s RTR underpass leakages fixed

All the leakage points were found to have been repaired and field teams were busy cleaning the drains and the affected area

New Delhi

The Y-shaped 1.2-km-long underpass connecting Benito Juarez Marg with San Martin Marg and Ring Road was opened in July 2022. (Vipin Kumar/HT Photo)

Water pipeline leakages that were flooding of RTR underpass in south Delhi have been plugged, with most of the water being drained out, and the Public Works Department‘s (PWD’s) field teams were busy cleaning the tunnel shafts on Wednesday.

The action comes after a news report in these columns highlighted that fresh water leakage from the supply pipelines passing above the underpass was oozing out of the roof, walls, expansion joints and even nut bolts of the underpass, leading to waterlogging. During a second spot-check on Tuesday night, HT found that roof leakages had been repaired while water was still running from a few sections along the walls of the underpass. On Wednesday, all the leakage points were found to have been repaired and field teams were busy cleaning the drains and the affected area.

A senior government functionary said that more than 20 leakage points were found and repaired in the water supply lines. Public Works Department (PWD) minister Parvesh Verma has ordered that the entire section of the old rusting pipelines must be replaced for a permanent relief from the problem, along with the clean-up of the underpass and beautification work for its restoration, officials said.

The Y-shaped 1.2-km-long underpass connecting Benito Juarez Marg with San Martin Marg and Ring Road was opened in July 2022, after years of delay in construction and cost escalation. Commuters said that the underpass has suffered from drainage problems since its inception. The main tunnel under the Ring Road is around 526 metres long, while it is connected to three arms—the ramp on Benito Juarez Marg is 351m long, the San Martin Road ramp is 176m long and the ramp along the Ring Road is 200 metres long. HT initially flagged the drainage mess of the RTR in March.

There are three sets of fresh water supply lines which run above the section of the underpass connecting Benito Juarez Marg and San Martin Marg, serving the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), Haiderpur water treatment plant and 900 mm diameter maintenance pipeline.

The RTR underpass was the second of the two-part Rao Tula Ram project, which the Delhi government had approved in 2013. The first part, Rao Tula Ram flyover, was inaugurated in July 2019 after several delays. The project had missed at least eight deadlines.

After the Cabinet nod in 2013, construction work on the project began in November 2015, and remained stuck for over two-and-a-half years due to the delay in shifting several high-tension wires that power a railways traction substation in the area. Between 2015 and 2018, the executing agency was only able to complete 35% of the work on the underpass project. The original project cost was estimated at ₹102.4 crore, but the delay, cost of shifting utilities and tree cutting inflated it to ₹143.8 crore.