Gurugram DC inspects e-way spot where woman died in crash

Officials said the NHAI has closed a loop on the stretch for the safety of commuters, but people removed the barricades

Two days after a 56-year-old woman was killed and five others injured after their cab had a head on collision with a car being driven on the wrong side of the Dwarka Expressway, Gurugram deputy commissioner Nishant Kumar Yadav visited the spot along with officials of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) and inspected the stretch, which is slated to be completed in the next three to four months.

Gurugram DC Nishant Kumar Yadav visited the spot and inspected the stretch, which is slated to be completed in the next three to four months.

Officials said the NHAI has closed a loop on the stretch for the safety of commuters, but people removed the barricades and started using the stretch to drive on the wrong side, said officials.

District officials said earlier, commuters used to take Pataudi Road but that has been closed since the past two months for repair work and the only option left to commuters was to go through Kherki Daula toll plaza towards the Dwarka Expressway. But to avoid having to pay the toll, commuters removed the NHAI installed barricades and started driving on the wrong side, said police.

DC Yadav on Tuesday took stock of the ongoing work on the last phase of Dwarka Expressway, from NH-48 to Bajghera, and directed traffic police to keep a check on vehicular movement so that accidents could be averted.

A team of traffic police also visited the spot and barricaded the road and a team has been deployed to keep a check on speeding, said police.

Officials said traffic will shortly start playing on the 18.9km of the Dwarka Expressway falling in Gurugram, while the 10.1km stretch of the expressway in Delhi will be completed only by next year, said NHAI officials.

The construction of the Haryana section (18.9km) of the 29km Dwarka Expressway, from Shivmurti near Indira Gandhi International Airport to Dwarka near Kherki Daula toll plaza, has entered its final stage. A large section of the population in Gurugram will get a better commuting option to New Delhi and this will be the country’s first elevated urban expressway,” said Yadav.

Yadav inspected the road project from the cloverleaf to Bajghera on Tuesday. He also discussed various demands of the local people with the officials of GMDA and NHAI.

NHAI officials said most of the demands of the district administration would be accommodated before the road is opened to traffic. The access controlled urban expressway has eight lanes besides a three-lane service road.

Yadav said the commissioning of the expressway would mark a major milestone not only for Gurugram but also for the National Capital Region (NCR) as a whole.

NHAI’s project director Nirman K Jambhulkar said an estimated ₹9,000 crore has been spent on the construction of the expressway.

“The expressway has been constructed by dividing it into four parts. The construction of both parts falling in Haryana is over 90% complete and is expected to become operational by July. Whereas the work on the two parts falling in Delhi region will be completed by 2024,” he said.

NHAI officials said 200,000 metric tonnes of steel has been used in the construction of the road, which is 30 times more than that used in the construction of Eiffel Tower in Paris. Similarly, 2 million cubic yards of concrete has been used in its construction, which is six times more than that used in the construction of Dubai’s tallest tower, Burj Khalifa.

Also, 12,000 trees were transplanted during its construction, and such large scale transplantation was a first in the country. State-of-the-art technologies such as intelligent transportation system, advance traffic management system, toll management system, CCTV cameras, surveillance, etc. has been adopted on the expressway to ensure smooth traffic and safety of passengers, said officials.