Traffic police to decongest Noida-Greater Noida Expressway from today

The work of resurfacing the 25-kilometre long expressway has been underway since January 2021. The commuters on the six-lane expressway, which connects Delhi with the Yamuna Expressway, have been facing traffic congestion for over one year now due to the repair work

After months of inconvenience to commuters on the Noida-Greater Noida expressway in light of resurfacing and road repair work, the Gautam Budh Nagar traffic police has chalked out a detailed plan to decongest the expressway. Officials said that from Thursday, the repair work will be done only between 11am to 4pm and from 11pm to 6am.

Officials were instructed to put up ‘caution’ signboards near the spots where repair works are underway. (Sunil Ghosh/ HT Photo)

The work of resurfacing the 25-kilometre long expressway has been underway since January 2021. The commuters on the six-lane expressway, which connects Delhi with the Yamuna Expressway, have been facing traffic congestion for over one year now due to the repair work.

More than 150,000 vehicles take the Noida-Greater Noida expressway on a daily basis, said officials.

Ganesh Saha, DCP (traffic), Gautam Budh Nagar informed that a meeting between Noida authority officials and senior traffic police officers was held on Monday.

“Till now, the repair work was being done all through the day on both sides of the expressway, which led to severe traffic congestion during peak hours. This was discussed in the meeting and it was instructed that the work should only be carried out in specific time. In addition, the authority will ensure that the contractor that is carrying out the repair work will depute a traffic marshall for smooth flow of traffic around the spots where repair work is underway,” DCP Saha said.

In addition to this, the officials were instructed to put up ‘caution’ signboards near the spots where repair works are underway.

“Barricading will be done by the executing organisation at the work site in such a way that traffic bottlenecks will be averted. For this, traffic will be cautioned by placing road signboards and barricading will be done 200-300 metres ahead from the repair site, so that bottlenecks are not created,” said Saha.

DCP Saha added that in order to coordinate on these points, a WhatsApp group of traffic officials and Noida authority officials has been created.

“Traffic police will also ensure availability of cranes so that in case of a breakdown or accident, the vehicle is immediately removed and does not lead to further jam,” added DCP Saha.

BK Singh, project engineer at the Noida authority said that the work is expected to be completed by April 30.

“All the points discussed in the meeting with traffic officials will be implemented by the contractor who is carrying out the repair work from Thursday onwards. The arrangements will remain in place until the repair work is completed,” said Singh.

Meanwhile, the traffic police has also asked commuters to use the helpline number 9971009001 in case they face any inconvenience.

Vishnu Saini, a resident of Sector 137 who commutes on the expressway regularly, said that for the last one year, commuting has been a major hassle.

“The Noida-Greater Noida expressway is one of the best expressways in the Delhi-NCR region but since the last one year, the delay in completing resurfacing work on this stretch has left commuters hassled. The commute time which earlier took barely 30 minutes has now reached over 50 minutes during peak hours. On some days, it takes over an hour to complete the stretch. Hopefully, the intervention by traffic police will help resolve the issue though it should have come much earlier,” said Saini.