Khandsa Chowk FOB to be operational by mid-April

The proposed foot overbridge (FOB) at Khandsa Chowk will now be operational by mid-April, officials of the National Highways Authority of India said on Monday. Khandsa

The proposed foot overbridge (FOB) at Khandsa Chowk will now be operational by mid-April, officials of the National Highways Authority of India said on Monday. Khandsa Chowk has seen a high number of accidents. The original deadline for the FOB was January this year, but the ₹3 crore project got delayed due to the ban on construction in the wake of high air pollution levels, officials said.

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According to the NHAI contractor, even though work on the FOB started in September 2019, they were not able to complete it due to the construction ban by the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority. While not terming it a delay, Praveen Kumar, NHAI contractor for the Khandsa FOB, said, “With Holi and other holidays coming up, crucial time is being lost. For a week now, there will be no availability of labour.” Work on the construction of the FOB started in September 2019. NHAI officials also said that the FOB at Khandsa will be operational by mid-April. Ashok Sharma, project director, NHAI Gurugram, said, “The FOB at Khandsa will be operational by mid-April.”

The NHAI contractor said that they have completed a major portion of the FOB and are hopeful that by mid-April, this crossing for pedestrians will become operational. “We are constructing a simple FOB across the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway. It will have stairs and no ramps or escalators,” Kumar said. The NHAI does have the provision to put in elevators at this site in the future. “There is a provision to construct elevators on the FOB,” Kumar added.

At least 22 persons were killed in 156 accidents that took place at the busy intersection on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway between 2016 and 2019, as per a report prepared by Haryana Vision Zero (HVZ), a campaign aimed at bringing down road traffic deaths in the state. Sarika Panda Bhatt, programme coordinator with HVZ, said, “The FOB at Khandsa junction was initiated by HVZ and it was on our request that the NHAI took up this project.”

Even though there is an old FOB at the end of the Hero Honda Chowk flyover, not many commuters use it. Today, motorists have taken over this FOB, putting lives of pedestrians under danger. Col (retd) Subhash Yadav, general manager, Skylark, operator of the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, said, “The new FOB should provide access to only pedestrians and no motorists should be allowed on it.” In November 2019, the NHAI had installed jersey barriers in front of FOBs across the expressway, but a day later, commuters had removed them.