NHAI to open 7 lanes of flyover at UP Gate before Diwali

One section of the flyover, connecting Delhi to Ghaziabad, will be opened for commuters between Oct 10 and 15. Work on the remaining seven lanes is likely to get completed by end of December

In a major relief to hundreds of commuters travelling on NH-24, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is likely to open half of the 14 lanes in a major flyover connecting Delhi to Uttar Pradesh near UP Gate, ahead of Diwali.

The under-construction flyover at UP Gate is part of Delhi-Meerut Expressway project in Ghaziabad. (Sakib Ali /HT photo)

The 14-lane flyover is being constructed as part of the project to widen NH-24 under the Delhi-Meerut Expressway project. The location of the flyover, which is being constructed under phase-1 of the DME project, is the Delhi-Ghaziabad border, also known as UP Gate.

The length of the flyover is nearly one kilometre.

Opening a section of this flyover will help ease the bottlenecking near UP Gate.

“One section of the flyover, connecting Delhi to Ghaziabad, will be completed and opened for commuters any day between October 10 and 15. Work will continue on other sections of the road,” said RP Singh, project director, NHAI.

“The one side will give commuters seven lanes to move on. All the seven lanes will be used for moving traffic between Delhi and Ghaziabad. The other seven lanes will be opened later,” Singh added.

The seven lanes available on one side will also include four lanes of the expressway, apart from the normal lanes of the highway.

At present, NH-24 is a four-lane road and faces major traffic snarls because of the volume of traffic between Ghaziabad and Delhi.

The highway connects Moradabad, Hapur and Ghaziabad to Delhi.

At present, due to the construction of the flyover along the Delhi-UP border, commuters face traffic jams every day, especially during peak hours. The construction activity has forced the Ghaziabad traffic police to divert traffic to ease the rush.

Work is underway on phase-2 of the DME project which spans from UP Gate to Dasna in Ghaziabad district. Phase-2 is a 19km stretch and will have provisions of nearly 17 underpasses for local commuters to move between Ghaziabad and Noida areas, located on either sides of the highway.

Phase-3 of the project is also under construction from Dasna to Hapur while phase-4 connects Dasna to Meerut.

The foundation stone for the Delhi-Meerut Expressway project was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 31, 2015.

To improve connectivity between Ghaziabad and Delhi, the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) is now placing the final girders for an overbridge at Vasundhara. This overbridge will connect the two sides of the 10.3km Hindon elevated road. This will give direct access to local and long-distance commuters from Ghaziabad to UP Gate and ease traffic on NH-24.

“The placing of girders started on Thursday. Railway traffic will be blocked for four days, every alternate day. Once this work is done, we will be able to complete the rest of the civil work for the road and open it by end of November,” said SS Verma, officiating chief engineer, GDA.