Metro’s Badarpur line cleared of roadblocks

There is good news for Faridabad residents. The Central Empowered Committee has cleared the construction of a carriageway and overhead Metro line near Badarpur, reports Bhadra Sinha.

There is good news for Faridabad residents. The Central Empowered Committee (CEC) has cleared the construction of a carriageway and overhead Metro line near Badarpur.

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In its report submitted to the special Forest Bench of the Supreme Court, the committee held that both projects were in public interest and would clear the bottleneck on Mathura Road. The Forest Bench will take up the panel’s report on Friday.

“The decongestion of this bottleneck was long due and now requires to be completed at the earliest. The CEC, after taking into account all the relevant factors, is of the considered view that site specific activities should be allowed to proceed without any interruption or hindrance for both the projects,” the report says.

The committee was directed by the Supreme Court to consider an application moved by advocate Vijay Panjwani claiming that the proposed carriageway and Metro line on NH-2 would destroy the Rajiv Gandhi Sports Complex. The petition also said it would result in felling of large number of trees in the area.

Panjwani had also opposed the projects claiming they could cause damage to archaeological monuments in the area.

Both the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) rebutted Panjwani's arguments stating the projects were planned after receiving approvals from various authorities, including the Delhi Development Authority, Delhi Government, Delhi Urban Art Commission and the Archaeological Society of India. The NHAI said it has undertaken to plant ten times the number of trees that would be felled to accommodate the carriageway. About 395 trees are likely to be axed.

Countering Panjwani’s claims, the DMRC showed the permission to fell 638 trees in the area for its elevated metro line project. The corporation submitted that it had already deposited a cheque worth more than Rs 4 crore as the cost of land and also denied shifting the alignment from the Central Verge to the West side of the road.

In response to Panjwani’s claim that the project would affect monuments in the vicinity, the DMRC said it planned to maintain a safe distance of 13 metres from all the archaeological monuments in the area.