There is finally a glimmer of hope of traffic congestion around Rao Tula Ram Marg and Outer Ring Road in South Delhi coming to an end with the Unified Traffic and Transportation Infrastructure (Planning & Engineering) Centre approving a comprehensive development plan for the area.
The project envisages extending the existing Munirka flyover by a kilometre to beyond the RTR flyover on NH-8 side and construction of an underpass at the intersection of Benito Juarez Marg with Ring Road, which would allow vehicles coming from the airport side to take the road for reaching Ring Road.
Delhi PWD Minister Raj Kumar Chauhan said the approval of the UTTIPEC, along with the formal proposal for the project, would be forwarded to the Delhi Urban Arts Commission. “Once it is approved by them, the Delhi Cabinet would have to approve the proposal and give it the financial clearance as it is the authority to clear projects costing over Rs. 100 crore.”
He said as construction of three flyovers on Ring Road had failed to solve the problem of persistent traffic jams in the area, the Department had engaged the public sector RITES to thrash out a medium and long-term solution to the problem. As per its suggestion, UTTIPEC has now approved of an additional flyover on Outer Ring Road. The new flyover will be a portal structure in the shape of an inverted ‘U’, which will come up parallel to the existing flyover and will have a nine metre carriageway. Then there will be a 7.5 metre carriageway for traffic under this new flyover.
Senior PWD official S. Srivastava said this flyover would be an extension of Munirka flyover and would take off from its top level, run for about a 1,000 metres and finally descend beyond the existing RTR Marg flyover.
“Thus it would allow free four-way movement of traffic at the RTR Marg-Outer Ring Road T-point. This new flyover will also provide uninterrupted flow of traffic bound towards NH-8 and IGI Airport from Outer Ring Road,” Mr. Srivastava said.
As for the traffic coming from the airport side and headed towards Outer Ring Road, he said it used to normally take RTR Marg to reach Ring Road and this caused a lot of congestion at Moti Bagh crossing.
“We have another road in the area, Benito Juarez Marg, which passes outside Ram Lal Anand, Motilal Nehru and Sri Venkateswara Colleges but is mostly used for parking as at Ring Road end of the road there was no way of turning right. So now a right-turning underpass has been proposed at the T-point of Benito Juarez Marg and Ring Road. This would take the vehicles coming from NH-8 right up to Moti Bagh flyover and provide their easy dispersal,” he said.
