New Delhi: Paving the way for the construction of the Delhi portion of the Delhi-Mumbai expressway, lieutenant governor VK Saxena on Wednesday approved the transfer of 1.11 acres (4,509 square metres) of land from the irrigation and flood control department of the city government to the National Highway Authority of India.
Officials said the transfer of land has cleared a roadblock for the construction of the DND Maharani Bagh-Jaitpur-Pusta Road section of NH-148NA, a six-lane highway, which is a part of the Bharatmala project. While the total length of the stretch from DND Maharani Bagh to Sohna, where a section of the Delhi-Mumbai expressway up to Jaipur has already been built and opened for traffic, is 59 kilometres, the Delhi section is about nine-kilometre long. Officials said the construction of this section would go a long way in easing traffic on the crucial stretches between the city and neighbouring Faridabad and Noida.
The LG office said that the NHAI had requested for the transfer of this land parcel in January this year. “Owing to its importance, the LG, who has been consistently expediting the execution of such developmental projects, approved the transfer of land on an urgent basis,” said an official.
The approval has been granted subject to the condition that the highway authority will use inert and construction and demolition waste generated in the capital in the construction of the highway apart from making the required payment to irrigation and flood control department, the official added.
According to officials, the access controlled link from DND Flyway to Sohna has been divided into three packages and all these are scheduled for completion by April 2024. The first package of 9km, from DND Flyway to Jaitpur, will be an elevated corridor along the Yamuna and will only serve the expressway traffic.
The second package from Jaitpur to Ballabhgarh (25km) via the existing bypass is being made a six-lane signal-free stretch for expressway traffic. For the local traffic, the NHAI is constructing service roads of three lanes each on both sides. The third package connects Ballabhgarh to Sohna.
In another similar move, the LG has approved the transfer of 4,235 square metres of another land parcel owned by the irrigation and flood control department for construction of a power sub-station at Nawada village in Uttam Nagar. The request for the land, said officials, was first made in the year 2016.
