Eastern Peripheral Expressway to decongest Delhi will miss Aug 15 deadline

A labourer works at the construction site of the Delhi-Jaipur national highway in Manesar in the northern state of Haryana, India, July 9, 2015. To match insight INDIA-INFRASCTRUCTURE/ REUTERS/Adnan Abidi - RTX1KM9A

The Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE), a 135 kilometer stretch to decongest Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR), will miss the 70^th Independence Day’s deadline as the farmers’ agitation over land acquisition has stalled the project for over a month.

“Work has been held up for last 50 days,” an offivcial from National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) told Moneycontrol. “It won’t be launched tomorrow”.

The over Rs 7,000 crore project connects Palwal to Kondli in Haryana through Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh. Vehicles, not meant for Delhi, would be able to bypass the national capital through the peripheral way thereby easing traffic congestion and cutting down pollution by “almost 50 percent”.

Based on Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC), EPE will pave way for approximately 80,000 freight vehicles that pass the city every night.

The expressway, mooted as India’s “first smart and green highway”, would be bound with an intelligent highway traffic management system (HTMS), video incident detection system (VIDS), electrified by solar panel and faster Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system at toll booths.

It began in 2015 and was given nearly 900 days to be completed. It, however, has faced various roadblocks especially due to land acquisition.

“Work was stalled for close to a year (in total) due to different reasons,” he said.

He said that despite the Supreme Court’s ruling to expedite the work, agitation by farmers in Noida and Ghaziabad have stalled the construction.

“Farmers have been protesting in Noida since June,” he said.

Noida involves a stretch of 41 km which has been constructed in bits and parts.

Farmers in Greater Noida have refused to give up their land citing that the compensation given to them “was not as per Land Acquisition Bill 2013” and that the “land rate should be four times the prevailing circle rate in the village”.

They have also reasoned that their counterparts in Ghaziabad have been given “higher compensation” thus demanding a “uniform” rate.

Union minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari had earlier expressed his desire to launch the EPE by 15^th Aug, which Jain believes is “not possible” as “another 100 days” are required to complete the project.

EPE is part of the Peripheral Expressway Project which includes Western Peripheral Expressway (WPE) and EPE, connecting NH-1 and NH-2 from western and eastern side of Delhi.

The entire peripheral project would form a ring road around Delhi with a total length of 270 km. While a length of 183 km passes through Haryana, the remaining about 87 km length passes through Uttar Pradesh.