‘CP subways can wait, get the traffic moving’

You can quit cursing the government. A journey to or through Connaught Place is not going to be as harrowing as it has been lately. Lt Governor Tejender Khanna on Monday ordered civic authorities to scale down the disruptive renovation work to a manageable level. And Delhi Police was given a week to come up with a traffic-plan for the circle, reports HT Correspondent.

You can quit cursing the government. A journey to or through Connaught Place is not going to be as harrowing as it has been lately. Lt Governor Tejender Khanna on Monday ordered civic authorities to scale down the disruptive renovation work to a manageable level. And Delhi Police was given a week to come up with a traffic-plan for the circle.

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Traffic around Connaught Place has been chaotic in recent days because of extensive renovation work on road dividers and subways, as highlighted by Hindustan Times. The just concluded Auto Expo made it worse. The following uproar made the government redraft its Connaught Place plan. Khanna reviewed the renovation plan with all the agencies concerned on Monday. The New Delhi Municipal Council was instructed to make only three or four subways and not eight as announced earlier, to be completed before the Commonwealth Games in October. Traffic police and NDMC were told to submit a revised plan in which fewer sections of CP will be shut. “No new construction work would start till the next week,” said city police’s special commissioner (traffic) Ajay Chadha after the meeting.

“We have removed the barricades put by the civic body to facilitate the movement of vehicles,” he added.
The New Delhi Trader’s Association, which represents the businesses based in Connaught Place, had been pressing the civic agency stagger the subways.

“There was a huge dip in our sales due to the construction work,” said Atul Bhargava, president of the association.
The municipal council doesn’t seem to have given up on the eight subways though.

“We will try to come up with a new plan which will make sure that even if eight subways are constructed the general public is not affected,” said Anand Tiwari, spokesperson, NDMC.