CM Kejriwal will formally open Seelampur, Shastri Park flyovers on Saturday

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal will inaugurate both flyovers on Saturday at noon, Delhi’s public works department (PWD) minister Satyendar Jain said on Thursday. The PWD is the executing agency for both projects.

The much-awaited flyovers at Seelampur and Shastri Park will be thrown open to traffic from Saturday, bringing major relief to residents of east and north-east Delhi as well as those who regularly commute through these areas from Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad as they would now be able to escape the congestion on the Grand Trunk (GT) Road.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. (PTI)

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal will inaugurate both flyovers on Saturday at noon, Delhi’s public works department (PWD) minister Satyendar Jain said on Thursday. The PWD is the executing agency for both projects.

“An honest government takes care not just of its citizens, but also of the finances. The estimated project cost of the Seelampur-Shastri Park flyover package was ₹303.31 crore, but the Delhi government has constructed both flyovers at a cost of ₹250 crore. Our PWD managed to save at least ₹53 crore, which is very important in times of a pandemic when the usual sources of revenue for the government are severely hit,” said Jain.

PWD officials said the main six-lane flyover constructed on the Grand Trunk (GT) Road in Shastri Park has already been opened to vehicular traffic from Wednesday, That, they said, was done to test the structural stability of the flyover before its formal opening on Saturday. However, the two-lane single flyover at Seelampur will be thrown open to the public only on Saturday.

With the two flyovers now complete, they would provide a signal-free ride between Welcome in north-east Delhi and the Kashmere Gate ISBT — a roughly 8km ride on one of the most congested and traffic-heavy stretches in Delhi.

The construction work had started in February 2019 and both flyovers were to be completed by March 2020. But the projects got delayed by the construction ban in November 2019 on account of rising pollution and, later, by the riots in north-east Delhi in February. They were again stalled by the Covid-19 pandemic and the nationwide lockdown that came into effect on March 25. Their deadline was then shifted to July 2020, but work overshot the deadline for want of labour.

S Velmurugan, chief scientist, traffic engineering and safety division, Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), said the flyovers would bring relief to motorists headed to the Kashmere Gate ISBT and parts of Central Delhi from Ghaziabad, north-east and east Delhi. “ People from areas such as Shahdara, Seelampur, Dilshad Garden, Jafrabad and Gandhi Nagar would benefit as they now would be able to escape the congestion on the GT Road,” he said.