AFTER BURNING its hands with the proposal for a tunnel road to link East and West Delhi, which invited flak from environmentalists as well as heritage conservationists in the Capital, the Delhi government is now working on yet another tunnel road project. To provide "hassle-free movement" to motorists on Marginal Bund Road (Pushta Road) in East Delhi, the PWD has proposed to construct a tunnel road, which will originate from Gandhi Nagar and will go up to Shastri Nagar.
The first project, which proposed to connect Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium with the Commonweath Games village, was dropped last year when the Archaeological Survey of India withdrew its conditional permission on the direction of Union Culture Minister Ambika Soni. It threatened to damage the city's sensitive heritage zone between Purana Qila and Humayun's Tomb.
The new project, however, has nothing to do with the Commonwealth Games. The 1.
3-kilometre long tunnel would start from a small temple near India's largest wholesale garments market in Gandhi Nagar. It would first go under the rotary that leads to the old Yamuna Bridge and would also clear G.T. Road that leads to Kashmere Gate Inter-State Bus Terminus before merging with MB Road once again at Shastri Park.
The six-lane tunnel, said Public Works Department (PWD) officials, would provide much-needed relief to straight moving traffic, which often gets stuck in long snarls. "While slow moving traffic like hand-carts, cycle rickshaws and cargo three-wheelers will move on the surface road, the fast moving traffic will take the tunnel for a signal free and smooth ride," a senior PWD official said.
According to senior PWD officials, the proposal has already been cleared by Delhi government's sub-committee and need to be approved by the Delhi Development Authority's technical committee and Delhi Urban Arts Commission (DUAC) before a detailed project report is prepared and tenders are called. The engineers associated with the project, however, said the proposal has not been pursued on a priority.
The project, officials said, is a part to make MB Road from Akshardham flyover to Sabhapur Border in North East Delhi signal free. While the other road projects on this stretch including underpass at ITO Chungi and grade separators at Shastri Nagar and Raja Ram Kohli Marg intersections, have a deadline to meet, the PWD has not given any timeframe to this tunnel project.
"Though the project has been handed over to the PWD's commonwealth zone, it is not in the list which requires completion before the Commonwealth Games 2010. That is the reason why the progress on this proposal has been a little slow," said an engineer associated with the project.
HINDUSTAN TIMES
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