Substation in the way, Ghaziabad authority to realign Northern Peripheral road

The NPR, a 45-metre wide road, was proposed in 2012 during the term of the previous government and proposed to connect NH-24, erstwhile NH-58 and state highway-57, near Loni

The Ghaziabad development authority (GDA) officials said they will have to make a change in the alignment of the proposed 15km Northern Peripheral Road (NPR). An electricity substation, constructed at Shamsher village, is coming in the way of the present alignment and that prompted the authority to rejig the alignment.

Officials said the substation in Ator has already been built and, hence, they were changing the alignment of the NPR. (Sakib Ali /HT Photo)

The NPR, a 45-metre wide road, was proposed in 2012 during the term of the previous government and proposed to connect NH-24, erstwhile NH-58 and state highway-57, near Loni. However, officials said the NPR was proposed on land acquired from eight villages, including Shamsher, Champatpur and Banhera Khurd.

Officials said that since the substation has already come up, the realignment of the NPR is being chalked out. The officials have proposed an alternative route, bypassing the substation.

The new route will need 3.5 hectares as against the previous 4 hectares needed if the NPR was constructed as per the original alignment, officials said.

“We will be altering the alignment of the NPR as the construction of the substation is complete and it falls in the way of our road alignment. The NPR will now be constructed as per the modified alignment. There must be some issue which could have led to miscommunication about proposed projects,” said Ishtiyaq Ahmad, chief architect & town planner, GDA.

The substation is of 400KV (Ator) capacity and was constructed as part of a public-private-partnership (PPP) project of the state government. It is one among the loop which connects substations in Hapur, Ator and Indirapuram.

The officials of the transmission department, however, denies any lack of coordination between the two agencies.

“The project was constructed on a PPP basis and is a government project. It was constructed after getting the requisite permissions from various government entities,” said Piyush Garg, superintending engineer, UP Power Transmission Corporation Limited.

According to the land acquisition department officials of the authority, the NPR will involve a land cost of nearly Rs 550 crore.

“The acquisition for the full length of the road is around 54 hectares and it was done in 2017. Since the issue has cropped up, we have stopped the disbursal of compensation for three villages of Shamsher, Champatpur and Banhera Khurd,” an official said.

The NPR project will pass near Raj Nagar Extension and also GDA’s Madhuban Bapudham housing scheme near the erstwhile NH-58. The road was proposed to boost the traffic infrastructure and connectivity between isolated areas falling near the three highways.