One Chirag Dilli carriageway opens after repair, another partially closed

NEW DELHI: The Public Works Department completed the repair work on one carriageway of the Chirag Dilli flyover on Friday, then partially closed the other carriageway to begin work on it.
The carriageway under repair, the one taking traffic from Nehru Place toward IIT-Delhi, was fully opened on Friday morning, providing relief to thousands of commuters, who otherwise had been grappling with jams. The closure to facilitate the replacement of 16 joint extensions on the flyover had not only immensely slowed down traffic on the road, but also affected movement to Chittaranjan Park and Greater Kailash localities.
The carriageway had been closed for traffic on March 12. With PWD minister Atishi monitoring the work daily given the huge inconvenience to motorists, there was pressure to complete the work in fewer than the 25 days the repairs were scheduled to take. Despite the recent rains hampering the activities for two days, the PWD was able to complete the work in 19 days.
“The planning wasn’t proper and it created a mess for two weeks,” grumbled Chetan Sharma, chairman, Federation of GK-II Complex Residents Welfare Associations. “The stakeholders weren’t consulted before undertaking the repair work.”
From Friday afternoon, one of the two lanes of the second carriageway was closed for the joint extension work, affecting the movement of vehicles coming from IIT-Delhi, Panchsheel Park, Malviya Nagar, Soami Nagar, Gurgaon and IGI Airport. “Usually it takes me 15 minutes to cross this stretch in the evening peak hour. Today, it took me an hour,” said a motorist stuck in the jam near Soami Nagar. “I am aware of the work being carried out on the Chirag Dilli flyover. Let’s hope it is completed soon.”
To ease the woes just a bit, only one of the two lanes on the carriageway was closed, leaving one open for the traffic. Three traffic policemen stood near the flyover directing cars to use the road below the flyover. Many people didn’t know that one lane was closed on Friday. The road below the flyover was, therefore, fairly free. “Seeing this, we directed all heavy vehicles to use that road,” said a traffic officer. “On Saturday and Sunday, we will try to direct all traffic to the road below the flyover to assist PWD to work on both the lanes.”
An unexpected problem arose on Friday when a portion of Press Enclave Road in Saket caved in. Although PWD finished repairing the road by late afternoon, traffic movement was hampered. A PWD official disclosed that the cause of the road collapse was an unfinished sewer line. “We have written to Delhi Jal Board several times, but they haven’t completed the sewer work. This is the fifth cave-in on a 250-metre stretch,” said the official.