A new tunneled road — touted as the city’s longest and India’s widest — is coming up in South Delhi and will help ease traffic between the Indira Gandhi International Airport and areas like Vasant Kunj, Vasant Vihar, Mehrauli and Qutub Industrial Area by providing seamless connectivity, official documents seen by News18 reveal.
The project starts from Shiv Murti interchange of the Dwarka Expressway and will end at Nelson Mandela Marg towards the Vasant Kunj end.
The five-kilometer road will not only offer an alternate connectivity to and from the airport and Gurugram but will also act as a bypass to Rangpuri and connect the Dwarka Expressway with Vasant Kunj through Nelson Mandela Marg.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on Tuesday issued a request for proposal and invited bids for the construction of the road.
“It has been proposed to extend the existing Nelson Mandela Marg via a tunnel towards Gurugram/Dwarka with an interchange near Shiv Murti to connect NH-8 and Dwarka Expressway. The entire alignment is green field and a six-lane configuration of length 4.9 km, out of which, 4.3 km will be a long tunnel along with its 600m ramp road,” the NHAI documents seen by News18 read.
The tunneled road will pass through urban and semi-urban areas, including Westend Green Apartments and Southern Ridge. It will be built under the EPC mode — Engineering, Procurement and Construction — as a part of Bharatmala Pariyojna.
Changed travel experience
The road will ease traffic and decongest Mahipalpur Road and Dhaula Kuan and act as a bypass for Rangpuri. These areas witness heavy traffic during peak and non-peak hours. The new road will not just save time but also a considerable amount of fuel and money.
Currently, the South Delhi traffic goes through Dhaula Kuan and Mahipalpur to reach the airport and Gurugram. This adds to the traffic woes of Dhaula Kuan, which sees perennial traffic congestion and even Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport and Highways, has been a frequent victim of these jams.
This will also make the airport journey easier and faster for those coming from New and Central Delhi. Further, the travel time for those coming from East Delhi, Noida and Ghaziabad towards the airport will also be reduced.
Environmental challenge
The demand for an alternate road for the airport and Gurugram has been pending since long. The initial plan, according to the NHAI, was to build an elevated road. However, the plan could not be executed and then the idea of a tunneled road came up.
According to the environment clearance request by the NHAI, also seen by News18, some portion of the project passes under the Southern/Morphological Ridge. However, it added that there is no surface intervention or disruption on the ground surface of the Ridge.
“The alignment passes through the Southern Ridge with a length of about two km but does not pass through the protected area… No trees are proposed to be cut within the boundary of Southern/Morphological Ridge,” the NHAI claims.
Further, about 1,286 trees have been counted within the proposed right of way at the approaches of the tunnel and existing Nelson Mandela Marg which are out of Ridge boundary.
Design, cost & construction time
To be built using a tunnel boring machine (TBM), the road will be around five kilometres long, the longest tunneled road in Delhi-NCR. The finished diameter of the tunnel will be 13.8 meters — widest in India. The six-lane tunnel road will be of twin tube configuration. Each side will have three lanes.
The project details say the tunnel will be designed as dry and un-drained. “The twin tunnels of more than 500m length will be connected by a cross passage to facilitate diversion of the traffic from one tube to another in the event of an incident/accident in one of the tubes at a spacing of 500 m… In normal conditions, the gates of cross passage are closed,” the document reads.
Costing around Rs 2,000 crore, the project will be completed in four years from the date of commencement of work. The bids will open on July 18.
The tunnel will have a video surveillance system, video incident detection system, emergency roadside telephones, variable messages signs, meteorological sensors inside and outside, leaky feeder cable for mobile signals, maintenance passage with access arrangement from footpath and linear heat detection system.
The tunnel will also be equipped with a ventilation system, regular and emergency power supply, earthling and potential equalization tunnel lighting system, storm water drainage system, fire protection (detection and fighting) system, and communications and traffic control system.
Even though the wait for the new road will be a long one, it will play a major role in the overall decongestion plan for the national capital.
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