Roads through Aravallis on hold, for now

Gurugram The plan to construct twin link roads between Gurugram and South Delhi, through the Aravalli Biodiversity Park (ABP), has been shelved for the time being,

Gurugram The plan to construct twin link roads between Gurugram and South Delhi, through the Aravalli Biodiversity Park (ABP), has been shelved for the time being, officials of the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) have confirmed.

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A senior NHAI official, requesting anonymity, said that the project — which involves the construction of two six-lane highways from Ambience Mall to Ayanagar in Delhi and another from Vasant Kunj to Ayanagar, both on Gurgaon-Mehrauli Road — has been put on the back-burner indefinitely.

“After protests against the original proposal, the NHAI was asked to work out a new alignment that would minimise the impact of the highway on the Aravalli Biodiversity Park, but now, there is no plan to proceed further with the exercise,” the NHAI official said.

Following public outrage against the project last October, the GMDA, this March, asked the NHAI to reassess the alignment, which, in their original form, would have subsumed a third of the park’s 380-acre Aravalli habitat.

However, a senior GMDA official, also requesting anonymity, said, “The project is a dump.”

This development allays the concerns of environmentalists, who took note of it after the project found a mention in the GMDA’s recent Comprehensive Mobility Plan for the city, released in September. In Chapter 11 of the CMP, under a list of measures to decongest NH-48, it states, “To increase more access between NH-8 and MG Road a connection need develop between NH-8 at ambience mall and MG road (Aravalli Biodiversity Park).”

The plan received strong objections, many of which were directed against this project.

When asked if the project had indeed been “dumped”, V Umashankar, chief executive officer, GMDA, said, “Yes.” However, he said that a link, such as this one, will become a necessity in the near future. “Sooner or later, the demand for an alternative link between Gurugram and south Delhi will arise, as that is the only way to decongest traffic at Sirhaul. There is no other viable route,” Umashankar said.

The Dwarka Expressway, which is under construction, will connect west Delhi to newer sectors of Gurugram but is unlikely to decongest the bottleneck at the Sirhaul toll on NH-48, Umashankar explained.

Citing examples of other infrastructure projects that proceeded to be executed despite opposition from civil society, such as the Aarey car-shed project and Delhi’s Dwarka Expressway, Umashankar added, “Even the courts will eventually come to see the need for such a link.”

Umashankar also said that Gurugram’s proximity to the airport and connectivity with Delhi are both integral to the city’s attractiveness for investors. “The longer it takes to get to the airport, the more it impacts the city’s ability to remain attractive economically. The mobility factor informs much of the development on either side of Sirhaul, in Gurugram and Delhi,” he said, justifying the need for an alternative link to solve congestion at the Delhi-Gurugram border.

Environmentalists and experts, however, criticised these remarks, demanding that alternative routes be considered, if at all there is a need for such a link between the city and the Capital.

Vijay Dhasmana, an ecologist who played a central role in restoring the ABP, said, “There needs to be a paradigm shift in the way that we plan cities. While deliberating on the economics of mobility and real estate, planners must also consider other factors that impact quality of life in a city, such as clean air, water and accessible public space. The road will benefit mainly private vehicles, which is a fraction of the population, and exacerbate the terrible pollution crisis that NCR goes through every winter.”

Other experts said that the fight to save ABP is representative of the larger struggle to protect the Aravallis, which have recently come under threat from the proposed amendment to the Punjab Land Preservation (Haryana Amendment) Act (PLPA), and the ministry of environment, forest and climate change’s (MoEFCC) recommendation to exclude large parts of the Aravallis from Haryana’s Natural Conservation Zones.

Mukta Naik, an architect and urban planner with the Centre for Policy Research, said, “You have to view this issue in light of the fact that legal protection for the Aravallis is presently weak, and that Haryana hasn’t notified them as protected forests.”

While ecological trade-offs in favour of development are common around the world, the public demand to protect the ABP points to a situation, where a much larger ecology is in need of restoration. “The project might have met less opposition if the government committed to protecting the Aravallis in other parts of the state, perhaps, using the learnings from ABP itself to regenerate native forests, but there is no such indication,” Naik said, adding that the park has successfully brought together dissenting voices from different fields, including urban planning, forestry and transport.

Viewed purely through a lens of mobility, transport experts say that the proposed alternative link is short-sighted and undermines the government’s own efforts at improving mobility in Delhi-NCR. The upcoming Delhi-Alwar Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS), for instance, is expected to divert a large portion of the traffic away from NH-48, once it starts operations. According to figures mentioned in the GMDA’s CMP itself, the RRTS could potentially divert 46% of traffic from cars, two-wheelers, buses and railways through this network.

“If you now build a parallel road, as was done along Gurugram’s Rapid Metro, you are disincentivising the modal shift, which the RRTS has been designed to provide,” said Sarika Panda Bhatt, citing the example of the Rapid Metro, whose ridership has suffered owing to the parallel Golf Course Road.

Moreover, neither widening of the NH-48 nor the construction of the Golf Course Road has been able to solve Gurugram’s congestion issue. The claim that an additional link road will solve the issue is unfounded, experts maintain. “To build roads to solve congestion is like loosening your pants to fight obesity. This, now, is generally accepted wisdom among urban planners across the world,” Bhatt emphasised, warning that the bottleneck could be replicated at any other link.

“What we need are concerted pushes for mass transit, such as buses and Metro expansion, which are already in the pipeline. The road would jeopardise their benefits,” she said.

Umashankar did not respond to requests seeking comment on the experts’ views.