Safety forgotten in Connaught Place renovation hurry

If shopping in Connaught Place, better watch your step, especially at night. Redevelopment of the commercial hub has picked up pace after HT’s Save CP campaign, but the contractors have ignored pedestrians’ safety. HT reports.

If shopping in Connaught Place, better watch your step, especially at night. Redevelopment of the commercial hub has picked up pace after HT’s Save CP campaign, but the contractors have ignored pedestrians’ safety.

Iron rods jut out of roads, manhole covers are missing and pavements remain dug up without any signboards warning of the danger ahead. Shoppers and traders have complained about how unsafe parts of the market have become.

“We requested the contractor to put barricades in the areas under construction,” said Atul Bhargava, president of the New Delhi Traders’ Association.

Engineer India Limited, the project contractor, formed a team two weeks ago but that hasn’t helped.

The worst affected stretches are the Regal building, where pavements have been dug up and debris left in the open, and Barakhamba Road, where the NDMC took up the pavement to build a subway.