Why wait for PM to inaugurate, asks SC
The Supreme Court on Thursday cracked its whip on the culture of VVIP inaugurations, questioning why the nation should wait for the Prime Minister to inaugurate a major 6-lane bypass expressway which is expected to reduce traffic chaos and pollution in the capital.
Exasperated, the Bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta has set a deadline of May 31 for throwing open the expressway, with or without its formal inauguration.
If the Meghalaya High Court can function for the past five years without an official inauguration, why should the Eastern Corridor wait?
The court was upset with the National Highways Authority of India for first in- forming it that the corridor will be inaugurated by April 20 and then submitting that the inauguration was scheduled for April 29 but it could not be done due to PM Modi's other prior engagements.
The 135-km corridor with no traffic signals has been built to decongest Delhi and allow the heavy vehicles to move with full speed without entering the city.
The Haryana government's counsel told the court that 81% work on the western peripheral corridor is also complete and all construction would be finished by June 30 before onset of the monsoon.
Though the timeline fixed for completing this corridor was in February 2019, counsel said the Haryana government is ensuring that it is ready by June end.
The two corridors have been built in deference to the Supreme Court's directive in 2005 to the Centre to construct a ring road around the national capital for managing the non-Delhi bound traffic as well as lessen pollution in the national capital. The eastern and western peripheral corridors were planned in 2006. After much delay, the Rs 5,763-crore eastern corridor's construction began in 2015, with the government's target of completing the project in 400 days.
The signal-free project falls in Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. It will enable vehicles coming from Jaipur side to bypass Delhi to head towards Punjab, Kolkata, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.