LG gives green light to several infrastructure projects in city

NEW DELHI: Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal on Thursday chaired the Governing Body Meeting of Unified Traffic and Transportation Infrastructure (UTTIPEC) meeting at Raj Niwas and took several important decisions.

The underground tunnel below ITPO at Pragati Maidan, signal-free corridor from Modi Mill Flyover to IIT Delhi, extension of the Ashram flyover up to DND/RING Road were among a number of major projects approved at meeting by the LG.

Stressing on the need to provide better traffic engineering solutions for decongestion, the LG asked officials concerned to make Delhi roads friendlier to pedestrians and cyclists.

Many projects were long pending, since the time of the Sheila Dikshit-led Congress government, including the connectivity of Mathura Road to Ring Road through underground tunnel below the ITPO (Pragati Maidan area), along with underground U-turns on Mathura Road from ‘W’ point to up to Sundar Nagar.

Baijal approved two other important projects, which had been pending for long, such as the corridor development plan of Grand Trunk Road from Old Yamuna Bridge to Apsara Border, including the doubling of existing Seelampur flyover.

The proposal also included a two-way flyover on Shastri Park junction, along with two cloverleaves to decongest the Shastri Park junction, and extension of the existing Ashram flyover upto DND/ Ring Road to facilitate the right turning movement for traffic coming from Kilokari village towards Lajpat Nagar side.

Some other proposals approved at the meeting included construction of two underpasses on Outer Ring Road between Gopalpur Red light-jagatpur Bridge and a short term plan to decongest the Najafgarh area which includes one way traffic circulation around Phirni Road along with non motorized vehicles (NMV) lanes.

There were also talks on the underpass along Marginal Bund road on its intersection with Wazirabad road, underground pedestrian connectivity from Kidwai Nagar GPRA towards Delhi Haat side across Aurobindo Marg, multi-modal integration of the six existing Metro stations i.e. Shastri Nagar, Jahangirpuri, Karol Bagh, New Delhi, Dwarka Mor and Nehru Place to provide the last mile connectivity for pedestrians and NMVS.

At the same time, Baijal directed that the approvals granted must see time-bound implementation on the ground so that there are no time and cost overruns.