The Hindu : New Delhi News : Moolchand underpass finally gets the nod

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 29, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Moolchand underpass finally gets the nod

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, OCT. 28. Here is a piece of good news for lakhs of Delhi motorists and others who commute on Ring Road daily. After a prolonged delay, construction of an underpass at the Moolchand flyover crossing on Ring Road has been officially approved. Though work on the project will only begin after four months, the construction is likely to be completed within 20 months.

The Delhi Tourism and Transportation Development Corporation (DTTDC) Chairman-cum-Managing Director, Ramesh Negi, announced today that the Technical Committee of the Delhi Development Authority had given its approval for construction of the underpass that had been proposed almost four years ago. "We had been awaiting the approval of DDA for the past five months and had even re-submitted the proposal. Now we have been told that a formal approval had been granted to the project. We will invite tenders very soon and the entire work would be completed within 20 months time including shifting of services," he added.

According to the DTTDC Chief Engineer, Jose Kurien, the process for appointing of consultants for the project has already been set in motion. They will prepare the design and after it is formally approved, tenders will be floated. This entire process will take around four months time and we hope to complete it within 15 months from the date of construction.

The Rs. 30 crore project will be a 450-metre-long underpass with two-subways for pedestrians. One sub-way will be on the Moolchand Hospital side and the other would be on Andrews Ganj side. "We will make a designer underpass. Once it is ready, it will solve the problem of traffic congestion and constant jams on Ring Road," Mr. Kurien remarked.

The DTTDC already has the experience of having constructed an underpass at Madhuban Chowk on Outer Ring Road in North-West Delhi that was opened for vehicular traffic early this year.

With the Lajpat Nagar-Srinivaspuri flyover ready for being thrown open to traffic next month, the flow of traffic on the South Extension-Ashram stretch would rise tremendously. Chaos, traffic snarl-ups, long queues of vehicles and irritated commuters is presently the order of the day at the Moolchand signal crossing on Ring Road. Hundreds of vehicles line up on both sides of Ring Road at this crossing not only during the morning and evening peak hours, but throughout the day with queues at times even stretching to the Andrews Ganj flyover and one part of the now one-side open Lajpat Nagar-Srinivaspuri flyover. The non-existence of an underpass at this point had created a new bottleneck with the waiting time stretching to even an hour at times to clear the two km road.

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