Dwarka Expressway project: Work on cloverleaf intersection to start in August, says NHAI

Officials of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) said they are likely to start work on the remaining section of an under-construction cloverleaf intersection near Kherki Daula, on Dwarka Expressway, by mid-August.

Officials said that they are awaiting the transfer of 0.3 acres from the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG), which is likely by the month-end. They said that work was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but is likely to resume in full swing soon.

Nirman Jambulkar, project director, NHAI, said, that work is currently going on at the site and that the work on the 0.3 acres will start in August. “The land will be transferred to us by July-end and this will help us in completing the work,” he said.

The under-construction cloverleaf will connect the Dwarka Expressway, also called the Northern Peripheral Road (NPR), with the Southern Peripheral Road (SPR), which is on the other side of the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway. It will ensure hassle-free movement of traffic between SPR and NPR, said officials. The cloverleaf will be a two-level interchange, on which left turns will be handled by slip roads.

Work at the site was stuck for over a year due to litigation over two small plots in the vicinity. However, following directions from the Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari and Gurgaon member of Parliament Rao Inderjit Singh during a visit in March, the district administration and other civic agencies facilitated the transfer of these plots.

NHAI officials said that one of these plots has already been transferred to the authority and with the transfer of the second plot, the road projects will be completed without any further obstacle. The deadline for the Gurugram section of the project was fixed for December 2021, but due to the lockdown, the contractor is likely to get more time, said officials.

Officials on Wednesday also said that due to less rain on the first two days of the monsoon, there was no serious waterlogging issue at the project site, even as they insisted that the civic agencies have to develop a comprehensive stormwater drainage system to manage the flow of water.

Gadkari, during his visit in April, set August 2022 as the deadline for completion of the entire 29-kilometre Dwarka Expressway project, 11 kilometres of which fall in Delhi.