‘Curing period’ to delay Hero Honda Chowk flyover reopening

Gurgaon: Despite an assurance from Nitin Gadkari that the Hero Honda flyover will open by February 15, the deadline has been pushed back by 10 days, disappointing commuters who have had to cope with traffic diversions since last October after chunks of the deck slab fell off the flyover in May.
The delay has been attributed to a prolonged curing period of the deck slab and 'unexpected delay in casting crash barriers'. While the work on the deck slab that was laid two weeks ago is almost nearing completion, the casting of meter-long crash barriers will take another couple days and five more for it to gain strength.
“The curing period is slightly delayed. But, the main issue is the casting of the crash barriers. We thought that we could cast it during the period but that couldn’t happen,” an official at Valecha Engineering, NHAI’s contractor for the project, told TOI.
Furthermore, the strength testing of the entire flyover mandated by NHAI is yet to begin. While the curing process was to be completed in the first two weeks of February, strength-testing was to happen simultaneously, that would have taken about 5 days.
Last October, the damaged Jaipur-Delhi side of the stretch was closed and it was claimed that within 45 days, the restoration work will be completed. However, due to the pollution-related construction ban across NCR, the work couldn’t even start before mid-December. January 31 was kept as a new deadline and it was later pushed to February 15.