Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari on Friday will lay the foundation stone for a 59-km six-lane national highway connecting New Delhi’s Ring Road with the under-construction Delhi-Mumbai Expressway. The Rs 3,580 crore is part of nine other central government projects to decongest Delhi-NCR region.
The highway alignment was announced by the Centre in May, 2018. The access-controlled highway project will start at the Ring Road-DND junction, pass through the Kalindi bypass and Faridabad-Ballabhgarh bypass, and will finish at the interchange of the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway at the Western Peripheral Expressway or Kundli-Manesar–Palwal (KMP) Expressway.
The project will reduce traffic congestion in the Ashram-Badarpur-Faridabad-Ballabhgarh region.
Traffic police data shows that around 300,000 vehicles cross the Ashram intersection every day. Vehicular traffic in the area shot up after the DND Flyway was made toll-free in 2016 and with the widening of NH-24 in June 2018. South Delhi-bound traffic from east Delhi and Noida uses this stretch, adding to congestion.
“This is expected to result in reduction of vehicular pollution,” the transport ministry said on Thursday.
The project will have three lane service roads on either sides for about 29 km, 7.350 km of elevated section with two level crossings at four locations of the metro line, 18 new underpasses, and nine interchanges with improved junctions. The Centre had announced a total of 10 projects costing Rs 35,600 crore to halve Delhi’s vehicular pollution.
The other projects are: a 3-km signal-free corridor from Dhaula Kuan to the Delhi airport, a 22-km elevated corridor connecting Gurugram and Sohna, 8-lane Delhi-Panipat highway from Mukarba Chowk on NH-1, the 82-km Delhi-Meerut Expressway (which is further divided into four projects), Rangpuri bypass to connect Dwarka/NH-08 with Vasant Kunj-Nelson Mandela Road, 4-laning 124-km Khekra– EPE junction to Shamli-Saharanpur (NH-709 B), and 75-km urban extension road six-lane corridor from Akshardham-NH-24 junction to EPE junction on Baghpat road.