NEW DELHI: Inaugurating two flyovers at Seelampur and Shastri Park that were completed before the deadline, CM Arvind Kejriwal claimed on Saturday that it was a rare occurrence in India’s history that a government finished infrastructure projects with significant savings on the cost.
Congratulating Delhiites and PWD officials and engineers on the completion of the flyovers, Kejriwal said the sanctioned cost of the project was Rs 303 crore, but the final cost was just Rs 250 crore, a saving of Rs 53 crore for the government.
In the presence of PWD minister Satyendar Jain at the inauguration, Kejriwal expressed happiness for east Delhi residents. “The people of east Delhi faced big traffic jams and long drives. Now, the journey from ISBT to UP border can be done in 10 minutes without traffic jams. The flyovers are of good quality,” he said.
Kejriwal said that east Delhi was ignored by the previous governments, but since he used to live in this region, he was well aware of the problems faced by people here. “In the last five years, a lot of progress has taken place in east Delhi, including the Signature Bridge and water and sewer connections. In the last five years, it has been our endeavour to successfully see through what we have envisioned for our city.”
The CM also noted the other projects undertaken by Delhi government. “Yesterday, we laid the foundation for a state-of-the-art, 1500-bedded medical wing at Lok Nayak Hospital. In India, governments are known to build hospitals with budgets of Rs 1,500 crore and each bed costing around Rs1.5 crore,” he said. “But we are building a fully air-conditioned hospital with cutting-edge technology at a cost per bed of just Rs 30 lakh.”
Minister Jain added, “The Azad Market flyover constructed by MCD took 10 years and cost Rs 700 crore. For these two flyovers, PWD took a year and a half, of which six months were affected by Covid and three months by GRAP. In effect, they took only 9-10 months to build, which is a big achievement.”
The foundation stones for the flyovers were laid by Kejriwal on February 10 last year. Despite the 6-month halt due to the pandemic, the project was completed before deadline.
The Shastri Park flyover consists of six lanes and is 700 metres long, while the Seelampur flyover is 1,200 metres long. They will bring relief to around 1.5 lakh vehicles that use the route every day.