Caved-in Gurugram underpass to reopen by September 15

DLF officials said that GMDA completed the construction of a reinforced cement concrete (RCC) slab on Monday, located above the point of leakage and four metres below the road surface.

Eighteen days after a massive cave-in near the exit of the Shankar Chowk underpass, officials of the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) and DLF, said that the facility will stay partially closed till mid-September.

Eighteen days after a massive cave-in occurred near the exit of Shankar Chowk underpass, officials of Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) and DLF, said that the facility will stay partially closed till mid-September, in Gurugram. (Yogendra Kumar/Hindustan Times)

The underpass has been partially shut since August 6 when leakage in the HUDA master sewer pipeline below the road led to a five square foot-wide and 15-foot-deep cave-in.

DLF officials said that GMDA completed the construction of a reinforced cement concrete (RCC) slab on Monday, located above the point of leakage and four metres below the road surface.

“Once the construction of the slab was completed by the GMDA’s contractor, structural integrity tests were carried out. The tests revealed that the slab needs at least three weeks for the concrete to fully strengthen. Hence it cannot support the movement of vehicles 100% in the interim. While all work at the underpass has been completed, we will wait until mid-September to fully open it,” a DLF official privy to the development said.

Initially, both the DLF and GMDA had anticipated that the underpass can open a week after work on the concrete slab had been completed. However, tests revealed that the structure needed three weeks.

“We do not want to open the underpass until we are fully certain that the sewerage line no longer poses any threat to the road surface above it. It is only once all parameters are in place, and all safety tests are completed that the underpass will be reopened,” Lalit Arora, chief engineer, GMDA, said.

Arora explained that concrete usually takes 28 days after casting work is done to reach its full optimum strength. He said that after two weeks of casting, the concrete reaches its optimum strength by 90%, and hence a three-week wait period has been set.

GMDA officials said that the RCC slab will act as a culvert to ensure that the road surface remains unaffected if another leak develops in the pipeline in the future.

The 464 metre-long three-lane unidirectional underpass near Cyber City Metro station was opened on April 7, 2017.

Before its establishment, the original route of the master sewerage line had been diverted to make space for the underpass to be constructed. The leak took place at the point where the diverted and original sewerage lines meet.

The unidirectional underpass allows the signal-free movement of traffic from Ambience Mall towards Iffco Chowk along the service lanes of the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway.

Following its partial closure, DLF opened a gap in the median dividing the underpass and the service lane of the expressway to divert vehicles towards the Iffco Chowk.

Vehicles descending from the underpass have had to take a mandatory right turn since August 6 and travel via the gap in the service lane instead of heading straight towards the Iffco Chowk.

The redirection has resulted in heavy congestion on the service lane during peak hours as vehicles coming from Cyber City also merge into the traffic at this stretch.

Shankar Chowk underpass is the third underpass to be closed this month.

On August 2, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) closed the Iffco Chowk underpass for 26 hours after road surfaces on both sides of the underpass developed cracks when rainwater coming from the direction of Sikanderpur entered the underpass and left it inundated.

On August 13, the unidirectional Rajiv Chowk underpass was also closed for five hours after it was flooded with rainwater coming from the directions of Ch Bakhtawar Singh Road as well as Rajiv Chowk.