West Delhi Ring Road elevated corridor’s deadline pushed to May 31

85% of the civil work has been completed but there will be delays on account of shifting utilities, officials said

Commuters using the west Delhi section of the Ring Road between Punjabi Bagh and Moti Nagar are likely to continue to face heavy congestion and delays for at least another three months as the Public Works Department has pushed the deadline for the construction of an elevated corridor between Raja Garden flyover and Punjabi Bagh flyover May 31 this year.

A flyover demolished for the construction of elevated road at Punjabi Bagh in New Delhi. (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)

Earlier, the project was to be finished by January 31, 2024.

According to a progress report of the project prepared by the department, 85% of the civil work has been completed but there will be delays on account of shifting utilities -- overhead high-tension power lines and Delhi Jal Board water lines. However, the department plans to open the Moti Nagar section of the corridor by early March, senior officers involved in the project said.

A senior PWD official said that the power discom is likely to complete work on shifting the overhead power lines by March. “We will also need forest department’s permission for tree felling and a DJB water pipeline passing through the right of way in Club Road flyover also needs to be relocated. Due to these hurdles, the completion deadline has been shifted to May 31, 2024,” the official who asked not to be named said.

But the official said the Moti Nagar flyover’s basic structure is ready and it can be opened for the traffic once the black-topping of carriageway is done. “It needs 10 days of work to open the road for traffic. We were hoping to bring construction material from Faridabad but this has been temporarily delayed due to restrictions in the wake of farmers’ protest. We hope to open the Moti Nagar section by early March,” the official added.

The west Delhi corridor development and connectivity plan for the influence zone of the Ring Road stretch between Punjabi Bagh Flyover and Raja Garden was launched in September 2022, and the first deadline was set for December 8, 2023. Delhi PWD minister Atishi inspected the site in October, highlighting the delay in the construction work of Moti Nagar and Punjabi Bagh flyovers. She directed the officials to complete the construction work by January 2024, pointing out that both flyovers were crucial for making the Ring Road jam-free.

A government spokesperson said: “Moti Nagar flyover will be inaugurated by first week of March, as work is nearing completion. Punjabi Bagh flyover will be completed by end of March.”

The project involves doubling of three-lane flyovers at Moti Nagar and Punjabi Bagh and connecting them to develop a six-lane corridor from the ESI Hospital to the Club Road flyover. The ₹352.3-crore-project is being carried out under corridor development and flyover construction scheme of PWD. Then PWD minister Manish Sisodia laid the foundation stone of the project in September 2022

PWD had earlier said that the project lost momentum when construction was banned under the Graded Response Action Plan (Grap). The construction work on flyovers bridges and other such linear projects was suspended in Delhi in Novemberdue to high pollution levels by the Commission on Air Quality Management in Delhi NCR.

A second PWD official said that besides utility relocation, another primary reason for the delay in Punjabi Bagh flyover was installation of girders in the presence of heavy traffic near the Bharat Darshan section.

Karan Harjani, who regularly takes the stretch from Pitampura to Punjabi Bagh, said that the residents of Punjabi Bagh have to endure traffic snarls every day due to delayed flyover construction, and potholes. “The plight of entire west Delhi is the same,” he said.

Nidhi Chaudhary, another commuter wrote on X, “It’s been so long Punjabi Bagh flyovers are under construction.. and the traffic on the Ring Road which is the life line of the Delhi is observing traffic jams.. people are suffering and there isn’t any police personnel to manage the traffic.”

The corridor between the Punjabi Bagh Flyover and Raja Garden Flyover is a part of busiest sections of Ring Road, and it experiences a heavy traffic load because apart from the regular city traffic, it also takes traffic from Haryana using the Rohtak Road (NH-10). The key route also connects north Delhi to south Delhi, Gurugram, and other parts of the NCR.

“An estimated 125,000 vehicles pass through the two flyovers every day and once the project is complete it is estimated to lead to annual saving of 1.8 million litres of fuel annually and 27,000 man-hours due to reduction in congestion. The fuel saving will lead to reduction of 160,000 tonnes of carbon emissions annually,” the second PWD official added.

The infrastructure planning arm of DDA -- the Unified Traffic and Transportation Infrastructure (planning and engineering) Centre or UTTIPEC had cleared the project in December 2020. The expenditure finance committee of the Delhi government provided the financial approval for the project on May 10, 2022