NEW DELHI: Clearing what may be termed as the final hurdle in making the Dwarka Expressway operational, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has begun surveying the site.
Sources said files pertaining to old land records had been sent to Chandigarh for approval. Problems with land acquisition that had been bedeviling construction of an 18-km stretch of the project will now be cleared. “The land has now been acquired and the same would be handed over to the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority,” a senior official privy to the project said.
The project was announced in 2006 and the survey for relocating the houses on the site had started in 2008. The surveys were completed but the problem with land acquisition persisted. “A lot of cases were pending in courts and hence there was a delay in the project,” the official said.
The expressway will have a total length of 27.6 kilometres, with an 18-km signal-free corridor. Of the expressway, 14 km will be in Gurugram and the rest in Delhi. A 3.2-km-long Central Peripheral Road was planned to connect it to the Southern Peripheral Road at Kherki Daula on NH-48. The construction contract was initially given to JSR Construction Private Ltd and India Bulls Private Ltd in April 2011, and the completion date was supposed to be March 31, 2012.
The project missed the deadline as a 4-km stretch of the route faced land acquisition hurdles in New Palam Vihar and sectors 100, 102, 103, among others. The Punjab and Haryana High Court disposed of the relevant petitions in May 2018 and the project was later acquired by NHAI.
The GMDA official expressed happiness that the final hurdle to the construction of the 18-km stretch had been overcome after 12 years. The NHAI also expressed satisfaction over the development. “It is great that we can finally restart work on it. Once operational, it will be a boon for commuters,” a senior NHAI official said.