Delhi airport to Alipur in 20 mins on Urban Extension Road-II: Nitin Gadkari
Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari, who inspected the 75-km-long road, said that almost 60% of the work has been completed
The Urban Extension Road-2 (UER II), connecting Alipur in north Delhi with Delhi Jaipur highway, near Rajokri in south west Delhi, will be inaugurated by the end of this year and unclog several parts of the national Capital, Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari said on Thursday.
Gadkari, who inspected the 75-km-long road being developed in five packages by the National Highways Authority of
India (NHAI) on Thursday, said that almost 60% of the work has been completed, and added that the important road link will be inaugurated by December this year.
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The ₹7,700-crore project, proposed in Delhi’s 2021 Master Plan, once completed, will connect four national highways (NH-44, 9, 48 and 19).
The Union minister said that the first three packages of the road (total five), which are coming up in Delhi, will act as the third Ring Road in Delhi. He added that the road will also provide an alternative route to traffic emanating from various parts of Delhi, Gurugram and Faridabad, as well as with thousands of commercial vehicles headed to Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh via Delhi, and vice versa. Two packages of UER II will be developed in Haryana’s Sonipat and Bahadurgarh.
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“This road will also be connected with the Dwarka Expressway, and further with the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway. A person travelling between Alipur and the IGI airport can complete the journey in just 20 minutes using this access controlled road. The same journey currently takes around 1.5 hours,” said Gadkari.
Gadkari said that the project was conceived by the Delhi Development Authority in 1980, but it could not be implemented. He added that NHAI took over after he raised the matter with the Delhi government and DDA. “We have received support from the Delhi government and DDA. This road was a difficult proposition but with the help of all sides, encroachments were removed from the proposed carriageways and the road is now nearing completion,” he said.
Addressing media persons, Gadkari also said UER II will be developed as the first electric highway in the country and it will be extended up to Jaipur. “An electric cable will be installed on the left most lane of the road in which e-buses, e-trucks and similar vehicles will move. This will greatly reduce vehicular and noise pollution in Delhi NCR,” he said.
The Union minister added that the road was being developed as a “green road” with two million tonnes of waste from Ghazipur landfill site to be used in the construction. He added that trees will be planted along the entire stretch of the road
He added that NHAI has taken up projects worth ₹60, 000 crore in Delhi-NCR. Of these, he said, the Eastern Peripheral Expressway and the Delhi Meerut Expressway have already been completed. “Our target is that by the end of this year commuters are able to travel from Delhi to Jaipur in two hours, Delhi to Dehradun in two hours, Delhi to Amritsar in 6 hours and Delhi to Srinagar in 8 hours. Also, the road journey between Delhi and Mumbai will be covered in 12 hours,” he said.
Gadkari also urged people to use electric and hybrid vehicles to help the country cut dependence on diesel and petrol, and curb pollution.
Delhi lieutenant governor VK Saxena, west Delhi MP Pravesh Verma, north west Delhi MP Hans Raj Hans and senior NHAI officials were present during the inspection.