Gurugram faces traffic jams as Hero Honda chowk flyover under repair ahead of monsoon

Three lanes on the Hero Honda chowk flyover will remain closed to traffic for a week to ensure that repair is carried out.

Gurugram

A portion of the Hero Honda chowk flyover in Gurugram is closed for repairs. It was closed after the cracks were surveyed by a team from IIT Bombay. (Yogendra Kumar/HT Photo)

One carriageway on the Hero Honda Chowk flyover was closed for traffic on Monday for repairs for a week, triggering massive jams on the Delhi Gurgaon Expressway.

The traffic police have advised motorists to access the Dwarka Expressway on the western side and the Southern Peripheral Road on the east for reaching their destinations in Gurugram. However, commuters are most likely to face heavier-than-usual traffic at Rajiv Chowk, where some of the suggested alternative routes end (see graphic).

On July 28, 2016, Hero Honda Chowk witnessed one of the worst gridlocks when the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway was inundated with water from the Badshahpur drain. On Saturday, after a brief spell of rain waterlogged the service lanes at the junction, the flyover will have to be kept operational to ensure there was no repeat of ‘Gurujam’.

On April 23, within months of its inauguration, a large chunk of concrete had fallen from the middle of the flyover’s carriageway, leaving a 15-cm deep, 250 sqcm wide hole. This carriageway takes traffic from Jaipur to Delhi side. With the iron bars exposed on the deck-slab, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had immediately called for an enquiry into the matter.

Three lanes on the flyover will remain closed to traffic for a week to ensure that repair is carried out, said NHAI. “The repair work has been carried out on the recommendation of the IIT Bombay. Extensive testing of the site was conducted to check the quality of structure so that such incidents doesn’t recur,” said Ashok Sharma, project director, NHAI.

At the time of the incident, NHAI had said that it was a ‘localised’ incident. It had said that remedial measures would be taken to resolve the issue. However, since then, the incident area had been closed for traffic, slowing the movement of vehicles.

The highway contractor, however, said the damage to the structure was minor and happened due to a honeycomb which caused concrete distress.

“This was not a structural fault and the repair was carried out on the recommendations of the IIT Bombay team which conduced a lot of tests. A large part of the concrete chipped off and was being repaired,” said K Madhusudan Rao, general manager, Valecha engineering Ltd — the firm which constructed the flyover and is responsible for the maintenance of the structure for six years.

The 1.4-km flyover was sanctioned on August 28, 2014, and came up at a cost of ₹197 crore.