Gurugram: View of elevated section of the 22 km length Gurgaon Sohna National Highway, in Gurugram. (PTI/Twitter/@nitin_gadkari)The 22 km-long Sohna elevated road was opened for traffic on Monday. A stretch of the elevated road from Subhash Chowk to Badshahpur was opened to commuters. The project is expected to ease traffic movement and cut travel time between Gurgaon and Sohna. The elevated road stretch will also connect to the Delhi-Vadodara expressway through an interchange at Alipur.
The Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari announced on Twitter that the highway has been opened for traffic today.
“The project for 22 km length Gurgaon Sohna National Highway has been developed to six-lane access controlled corridor with aggregate elevated section of about 7 km at a capital investment of about Rs 2000 crore. For facilitating movement of local traffic, three-lane service roads have been constructed on both sides. The highway is being opened for traffic today. This section would also provide connectivity to Delhi and Gurgaon through Delhi-Mumbai expressway,” tweeted Gadkari.
#ConnectingIndia with Prosperity!
The project for 22 km length Gurgaon Sohna National Highway has been developed to 6 Lane access controlled corridor with aggregate elevated section of about 7 km at a capital investment of about Rs 2000 crore. #PragatiKaHighway #GatiShakti pic.twitter.com/HH4vZzcJyS
— Nitin Gadkari (@nitin_gadkari) July 11, 2022
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The Sohna elevated road project has two parts. The first package – an 8.94 km elevated section from Subhash Chowk to a point beyond Badshahpur – was opened for commuters on Monday. The second 12.72 km long stretch from Badshahpur to Sohna was earlier opened for traffic on April 1, 2022. The elevated road project has been designed to provide signal-free and seamless connectivity between Gurgaon and Sohna.
Union Minister Gadkari was earlier supposed to inaugurate the project formally on Monday, but the inauguration was postponed.
Last month, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had cleared a proposal to allow two more access points near Subhash Chowk and Jail road near Bhondsi for ease of access to vehicles coming from the service lane. Earlier, the Sohna elevated road had one access point at Ghamroj toll plaza besides the entry-exit points at Sohna and Subhash Chowk.
The construction work for the project started in 2018 with work expected to be completed within 30 months initially. Successive lockdowns with the onset of the pandemic and ban on construction due to a spike in air pollution had caused delays. The project was further delayed after a 40-metre spine of the road collapsed near sector 48 in August 2020. The deadline for the project was revised to June 30, 2022.
Dwarka expressway to be operational in 2023: Gadkari
Gadkari also said on Monday that the Dwarka expressway, also known as the Northern Peripheral Road, which is being developed as the first elevated urban expressway in India, will be operational in 2023.
In a series of tweets, he said that the Dwarka expressway will reduce pressure on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway (part of the Delhi-Jaipur-Ahmedabad-Mumbai arm of the Golden Quadrilateral) and arterial roads that experience severe traffic congestion, primarily from the commuters of West Delhi.
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He said 50 to 60 per cent of traffic on NH-48 will be diverted onto the new expressway, thereby improving traffic movement towards Sohna Road, Golf Course Road and Golf Course extension road. “Once operational in 2023, it shall immensely help reduce air pollution in Delhi-NCR as well, he added.
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