Northern Peripheral Road will pass below Delhi-Meerut e-way; NHAI gives approval

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), in a meeting held Tuesday, allowed the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) to take its 19km Northern Peripheral

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), in a meeting held Tuesday, allowed the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) to take its 19km Northern Peripheral Road (NPR) below the elevated sections of Phase 4 of the Delhi-Meerut Expressway.

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The NHAI, on January 2, had refused the integration of Phase 4 of the Delhi-Meerut expressway, which will be an access-controlled stretch, with the NPR project.

After the authority’s proposal was rejected, the GDA officials once again tried to revive the integration of NPR with Phase 4 of Delhi-Meerut Expressway during Tuesday’s meeting, but their proposal was summarily rejected by the NHAI.

The NPR is a 19 kilometre long project which is proposed to connect the Delhi-Meerut Expressway near Dasna and go further to Delhi-Meerut Road and from there to Loni. The NPR is proposed as a six-lane bypass road to connect various outer areas of Ghaziabad city.

RP Singh, project director, NHAI, said, “We have told the authority that we will give the NPR a passage below the elevated sections of Phase 4 of the Delhi-Meerut expressway. For that, a structure will be constructed below the Phase 4 stretch and it will cost about ₹9 crore, which will be borne by the NHAI. We have asked them (GDA officials) to integrate the NPR with NH-9, which runs parallel to Phase 3 of Delhi-Meerut Expressway in Dasna, and their consultant will prepare the ground level road integration plan.”

“We have already declined the integration of NPR with Phase 4 because that portion of the expressway is access-controlled tolled highway, while NPR is a non-toll road,” Singh added.

The GDA officials said they will now prepare the surface road integration plan from the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI).

“The CRRI will prepare the NPR integration plan with NH-9 near Dasna (surface level integration) and send to NHAI for approval. There will some deviation from the NPR alignment, by about one kilometre, in order to join NPR with NH-9. Now, we will be going ahead with the surface level integration plan of NPR with the highway,” VN Singh, authority’s chief engineer, said.

“There were talks about integration of NPR with NHAI’s Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE) but that integration is not feasible as the EPE is about four five kilometres away and we do not have the land to connect the two,” Singh said.

For the development of NPR, the GDA has already requested funds of ₹490 crore from the state government.