At a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit at Delhi Secretariat to review the progress of the Connaught Place re-development project on Wednesday, the implementing body, New Delhi Municipal Council, was directed to expedite execution of the ongoing works to minimise inconvenience to traders and visitors to the market.
The ongoing works at CP include construction of the underground services tunnel, shifting of the utilities in the services tunnel and construction of two subways each at Panchkuian Road and Barakhamba Road.
According to NDMC spokesperson Anand Tewari, the Chief Minister emphasised on the contractors Engineers India Limited that the works should be completed by the existing deadline of December next year. The deadline for these works has been stretched from the original deadline of completing the CP project before the Commonwealth Games in October 2010. The civic body had however managed to complete facade restoration and certain other works under the project before the Games.
At the meeting, directions were also issued to the NDMC to co-ordinate with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation with regards to the impact of the metro's construction work for the planned station at Janpath on the CP project.
Mr. Tewari said: “We are already in touch with the Delhi Metro for this and having a meeting with them and the Delhi Police on this matter on Thursday. We want to study and asses if the metro's work would have any impact on the CP project and what needs to done in that case.”
According to the civic body, the work of interconnecting the underground services tunnel on two radial roads has been completed and would be taken up next on four more radial roads including Baba Kharak Singh Marg, Janpath and Minto Road.
The work on construct-ion of two subways at each at Panchkuian Road and Barakhamba Road is also scheduled to begin. “Once the underground service tunnel's connectivity over the radial roads is completed we would begin work on shifting of utilities including water and electricity lines inside it,” he added.
