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Kherki Daula toll plaza to be shifted once Dwarka Expressway is ready: Nitin Gadkari
Nitin Gadkari’s announcement means residents will have to wait at least till June 2023, which is the deadline for the completion of all phases of the Dwarka Expressway
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Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday said that the Kherki Daula toll plaza will be shifted to Pachgaon once the Dwarka Expressway project is completed.
“The Kherki Daula toll plaza will be shifted as soon as work on the Dwarka Expressway project is completed. A shallow tunnel is also being constructed to link this highway with the Delhi airport for better connectivity,” said Gadkari, while addressing the gathering at Pachgaon.
Gadkari on Wednesday laid the foundation stone of 18 projects to be constructed on the Delhi-Jaipur Highway and also dedicated an underpass at Sirhaul toll plaza, which has been constructed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, to the public. He also said that the construction of several underpasses and flyovers on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, which were constructed between 2016 and 2019, had greatly reduced traffic jams in Gurugram.
Gadkari’s announcement means residents will have to wait at least till June 2023, which is the deadline for the completion of all phases of the Dwarka Expressway. According to a senior NHAI official, the deadline for packages three and four is December 2022, while packages one and two are likely to be completed by June 2023.
“This means the Kherki Daula toll plaza will only be shifted by June 2023 at the earliest,” he said, requesting anonymity.
During his address at Wednesday’s event, Union minister of state and Gurugram MP Rao Inderjit Singh said the shifting Kherki Daula toll plaza as it has been delayed for far too long. “The shift is long overdue,” said Singh.
The Kherki Daula toll plaza was set up in 2009 along with the Sirhaul toll plaza. However, in 2014, the Sirhaul toll plaza was removed on the directions ofthe Delhi high court.
Over the years, several resident groups, local leaders and even the state government requested that the Kherki Daula toll plaza be shifted as it caused frequent congestion and jams.
In 2016, Gadkari said the toll plaza could be shifted if the Haryana government gave land to the NHAI for free.
Following this announcement, the state government and district administration initiated a large-scale exercise and identified land at Sehrawan near Manesar to set up a new toll plaza in place of Kherki Daula. This plan, however, got scuttled after stiff resistance and a legal battle waged by local residents and environmentalists, who asserted that this land was part of a green corridor.
After this plan failed to take off, the Haryana government, in consultation with NHAI, decided to shift the toll plaza to Pachgaon and identified 30 acres of land for this purpose, but this move was also opposed by landowners, who approached the court for relief. The land transfer remained stuck for almost three years, but after efforts by the state government, Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation and Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority, the legal issues were resolved.
In March 2021, Gadkari had announced that the Kherki Daula toll plaza would be shifted by August 2022, but due to repeated pandemic-related lockdowns and pollution-induced construction bans, the deadline was extended.
The Millennium City Expressway Private Limited (MCEPL), the highway concessionaire that took over the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway in 2014 has a concession agreement to collect toll till 2023.
