Not enough land, longer wait for Sohna rd upgrade

Gurgaon: Work to upgrade Badshapur-Sohna road into a 23km signal-free corridor has been delayed by another month owing to inadequate land acquisition. The work was scheduled to start by the end of this month.
TOI has learnt that for any work to commence, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) needs to have 80% of land, whereas in this case it has only been provided 70% of land by Haryana Shahari Vikas Pradhikaran (formerly known as Huda) and GMDA.

NHAI officials said that they have made the required payment for the project to the competent authority. “Payment of Rs 64 crore has been made to ‘Competent Authorities, Land Acquisition’ (CALA) but possession is yet to be given. Demarcation of national highway existing land boundary has to be taken up by district revenue officer, Gurgaon. This is likely to take 15 more days. After that encroachments have to be removed and work on the site will start,” a senior NHAI official said.

“There are many encroachments on this stretch. We are working with the local authorities to ensure that the land can be given to us for the Badshapur-Sohna road project,” the official added.

Tree-felling on the stretch is already under way. The upgrade work has been divided in two phases — Oriental Structural Engineers Pvt Ltd will be responsible for the stretch starting from Rajiv Chowk till Badshapur, while HG Infrastructure will carry out construction work between Badshapur and Sohna.

An Oriental official said, “We will be making a one-kilometre-long underpass at Subhash Chowk, followed by a 5km flyover which will start from Central Park and run till Bhondsi jail. As soon as the NHAI gives us approval, the work will start.”

On the remaining stretch from Badshapur to Sohna, flyovers and underpasses will be built at important crossings till Sohna town. The total cost of the project is Rs1,313 crore.

Once complete, this road will reduce traffic snarls at Rajiv Chowk and also reduce travel time to Badshapur to just 8 to 10 minutes.

In October, PWD and forest minister Rao Narbir Singh had laid the foundation stone for the construction work of this road. “See, we never gave any government official or minister any date when the work will start. Whatever anyone has said, we can’t comment on it,” another NHAI official said.