Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday directed the road transport and highways ministry to complete the 29-km long Dwarka Expressway project by September 2022.
This 8-lane access-controlled expressway project came up for review in the last Pragati meeting chaired by the PM on December 30.
According to the minutes of the meeting, the Delhi Government and Delhi Transco Ltd have been instructed to complete the shifting of 220 KV underground cables by this May.
Similarly, the housing and urban affairs ministry and DDA would complete the plantation by this April.
As per sources in NHAI, two stretches of the expressway in Gurgaon totalling approximately 19 km are estimated to be finished by June this year. While the other two stretches falling in Delhi with a cumulative length of 10 km would be completed by September 2022.
Work on Delhi stretches started late as forest clearance was awaited, a source informed the media.
“The work is in progress in all stretches and there has been regular monitoring at the level of NHAI chairman,” another official said.
The upcoming project will take off from Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway at Shiv Murti in Mahipalpur and will terminate at Kherki Daula toll plaza. It will reduce traffic load on the existing expressway and also be an additional link from Delhi to Gurgaon.
In March 2019, the foundation stone for the expressway was laid by then finance minister Arun Jaitley, then external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and highways minister Nitin Gadkari.
The Dwarka Expressway was on hold for several years before the work began again. In 2006 the project was planned by the Haryana government and contract was awarded in 2011. However, due to several hurdles in land acquisition and lack of coordination between Haryana and Delhi governments, the work got delayed. Later in 2016, Gadkari had accepted the Haryana government’s request to declare the inter-state road as NH and he had announced NHAI would build the road.
