An underpass, a bridge and a flyover — integrated components of a signal-free infrastructural project that aims to slash by 30 minutes the travel time of commuters headed to IGI Airport from south Delhi — will be inaugurated on February 28.
Union Urban Development Minister Hardeep Puri, L-G Anil Baijal and South Delhi MP Ramesh Bidhuri will inaugurate the project. The CPWD completed the project in about a year at a cost of ₹160 crore. The sanctioned cost was ₹188 crore.
The project will decongest the Mahipalpur bypass and village road through a loop towards Dhaula Kuan and a U-turn towards Gurugram allowing commuters to these locations relief from the bottleneck which the location transforms into during peak traffic hours.
Sources said no invitees from the Delhi government, which was initially supposed to bear around 20%, or ₹37 crore, towards its share of the project cost, would attend the inauguration.
“The Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) had carried out a survey which posited that an estimated 40,000 vehicles experience congestion on the route at the junction formed by Northern Mahipalpur bypass in the east and airport road in the west on a daily basis,” said the source.
“Around 75 percent of the volume of traffic, which undergoes congestion for several minutes on the 1.5 kilometre to two kilometre route from Vasant Kunj as well as on the Mahipalpur service lane which has numerous hotels, will be the direct beneficiary of this project,” the source said further.
The project consists of a 7 metre-wide ramp for free movement of right turning traffic coming from Northern Mahipalpur bypass road as well as traffic coming from Gurgaon side on NH-8 along with an underpass to connect Northern Mahipalpur bypass to the Airport road, the source said.
A uni-directional, or single carriageway, flyover of 9 metre to facilitate right turning movement of traffic coming from Vasant Kunj near the northern Mahipalpur bypass road is also part of the project.