NEW DELHI: After several flip flops over widening of the 20km stretch between
Delhi border and
Dasna on NH-24, the highways ministry wants to make it a four-lane elevated road.
The ministry is in favour of "innovative financing" of the project — giving real estate development rights to a private developer to recover the investment of around Rs 3,000 crore.
This move has raised eyebrows whether such a proposal would delay the much needed augmentation of this stretch. However, officials said the facility would come up and people won't have to pay toll to use this elevated stretch since allowing real estate development along the corridor will work as a sweetener for the developer.
Learning from Delhi-Gurgaon toll plaza where people have to wait for long, the ministry wants to make it a toll-free road.
On Tuesday, senior ministry officials held a meeting with representatives from Ghaziabad and Noida development authorities to chalk out a plan for speeding up the execution. After minister of state for highways Jitin Prasada raised the issue of finding a solution to the traffic jams on this stretch, a team led by highways secretary A K Upadhyaya had inspected the proposed Delhi-Meerut expressway. The Delhi border-Dasna stretch is part of the proposed expressway.
At present, the stretch from Delhi-UP border to Dasna is only four-lane. The main carriageway is only 7m and there is no paved shoulder. The inspection report prepared by top officials says that since there are many local roads crossing
NH-24 at grade and traffic flow is very high, there is congestion on this stretch.
