News: Dwarka Expressway: Delhi portion likely to lag behind Haryana’s due to delay in permission from forest dept-08-03-2020
Updated On: Mar 08, 2020
The delay in getting clearance for tree felling from the forest department of the Delhi government may force the Delhi portion of the Dwarka Expressway to lag behind in comparison to the portion that lies in Haryana, said NHAI officials familiar with the project. The Haryana portion of the expressway is likely to become operational by March 2021 if the construction work goes as per the plan. NHAI officials added that while work on the first package hasn’t started, tree felling is currently underway for the package two of the project.
Construction work on either package one — from Shiv Murti to Sector 21 Dwarka Metro station — or package two — from Sector 21 Dwarka to the Haryana border — hasn’t gained much pace. The NHAI awarded the work for package two in October 2019 giving it two years’ time for completion. Manoj Kumar, chief general manager (technical), NHAI, said, “Although tree felling for package two is underway, for package one, we are still waiting for permission from the forest department. Work has been awarded in package one. However, we need permission from the forest department to start work,” said Kumar.
NHAI’s contractor for both the projects in Delhi said unless they receive permission for package one, they can’t start the work. OS Sirohi, deputy project manager, J Kumar Infra Projects, said, “We are still waiting for permission to fell trees from the forest department.” Tree felling for package two is still going on, and it will take another six months before the casting yard becomes ready, said the NHAI contractor.
NHAI officials said that they had applied for permission from the Delhi forest department for felling nearly 6,343 trees before the Delhi elections and got the green signal for translocating only 4,425 trees. However, there are 1,918 trees of exotic varieties that cannot be translocated. As such, the forest department has not given permission, which has held up the project.
Meanwhile, the forest department said that they have forwarded NHAI’s request to the state government and are waiting for a reply from their side. Ishwar Singh, the principal chief conservator of forests, Delhi forest department, said, “We have submitted the file to the Delhi government for approval.” Forest officials also said that since permission for translocating and felling was given for package 2 and same for package one should also come.
The highways authority said that once complete, commuters will be able to access 18.96 km of the 29-km Dwarka Expressway from March 2021. However, the rest of the project might see some delay. “The one-kilometre road that connects the Haryana border and Delhi is narrow and can only allow two cars to pass at a time. Even when work on the Haryana portion is complete, commuters won’t be able to smoothly move towards Delhi as the road ahead is very narrow,” said Sirohi.
Meanwhile, in comparison to Delhi, the NHAI has had an easier run in Haryana, where fewer trees needed to be felled and permissions came timely. The work on package three — Haryana border to Basai railway overbridge — and package four — Basai road overbridge to CPR/SPR/NH-8 junction— started in October 2019. Last August, NHAI had written to the Gurugram forest department to fell 2,041 trees for which the permission was given. RK Mishra, project director, L&T Limited, packages three and four, said, “We have never had any issues with the felling of trees in Haryana.”
NHAI also has plans to construct a toll plaza for this project in Delhi. However, as the two packages in Haryana will start much before the national capital’s portion, the highways authority is thinking of implementing closed tolling on this stretch for the interim.
Asheesh Sharma, member (finance), ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) had written to the Haryana government in December asking its consent to start closed tolling on NH-8 and Dwarka Expressway. “We are waiting for their reply,” said Sharma.
NHAI officials said that, with closed tolling, commuters will be able to pay only for the distance they travel. “NHAI never starts an expressway without collecting toll. The highways authority is thinking of having closed toll facility on this stretch. Commuters will be required to pay only for the area they have travelled on,” said a senior NHAI official on anonymity. Udeep Singhal, project director, Dwarka Expressway, refused to comment on closed tolling.
The Haryana portion of the Dwarka Expressway will be almost entirely elevated and there will be two exit points at Babarpur and Pataudi Road. The contractor for the project said that although the work got delayed due to the ban on construction work last year, they are well on track now. “We were supposed to complete the entire project by December 2020 but with two months of construction work being stopped, we will hand over the two packages to NHAI in the first week of March 2021. We are on schedule,” said Mishra.
