The Hindu : New Delhi News : Nod for Capital’s corridor to the future

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Tuesday, Jan 15, 2008
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New Delhi

Nod for Capital’s corridor to the future

Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

It will take you from Akshardham to New Delhi station in a mere ten minutes

GOING TO BE HISTORY?: Traffic jams in busy Vikas Marg may become a thing of the past once the new corridor is opened.

NEW DELHI: The highly ambitious 7.9-km Akshardham-New Delhi railway station stretch of the Capital’s East-West corridor that promises to reduce to a mere ten minutes the travel time between the two destinations has finally been approved. At present the travel time between the two points would extend to an hour or more.

The decision was taken at a high-level meeting here attended by Union Urban Development Minister S. Jaipal Reddy, Delhi’s Lieutenant-Governor Tejendra Khanna, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and officials of the Delhi Urban Arts Commission, the Public Works Department and the Delhi Development Authority. The Rs.1,000-crore project would greatly ease traffic movement from East Delhi to the heart of the Capital. Though initially the Urban Arts Commission was opposed to the project, it gave its approval after certain modifications suggested by it were accommodated.

According to Ms. Dikshit, this is an important project in the run-up to the Commonwealth Games-2010 as it would reduce congestion on the existing city roads and result in a substantial addition to available road space.

Comprising a number of surface and elevated sections, work on this corridor would be undertaken from the Marginal Bund Road near National Highway-24 close to the mammoth Akshardham Temple and the proposed Commonwealth Games Village site next door. The stretch would pass through Bhavabhuti Marg and end at New Delhi railway station.

A key area to be covered by the corridor would be ITO where the road will be elevated and go as high as 16 metres passing over the existing bridges over the Yamuna.

The massive project is expected to ease congestion on crowded key roads such as Vikas Marg, National Highway-24, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg. Part of the Capital’s East-West Corridor, the project is expected to be 85 per cent elevated and 15 per cent at road level. Beyond New Delhi railway station, it would at a later stage be extended another 12 km up to Punjabi Bagh in West Delhi.

Ms. Dikshit on Monday expressed happiness at the approval for the project.

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