The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) said it may extend the tender application date — which ends on November 3 — by a fortnight or more, since the land required for the proposed elevated corridor along the Dwarka expressway is stuck in litigation.
NHAI had floated a tender on September 18, inviting applications from competent companies to construct a 10-km stretch of the elevated corridor between the Gurgaon-Dwarka border and the Basai flyover. A stretch of nearly 1.4 km near the border is stuck in litigation.
Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) is the custodian of this land.
The purpose of the elevated road is to separate local traffic from the expressway’s (national highway) long-distance traffic.
“If required, we will extend the tender application date by a fortnight or a month from November 3. NHAI needs land free of all litigation to award the work to a company. A portion of the land needed for the elevated corridor near the Gurgaon-Dwarka border is in a legal tangle, and we are waiting for HUDA to hand it over,” said Udeep Singhal, Dwarka expressway project director, NHAI.
“The elevated road will start from the Gurgaon-Delhi border and end near the Basai railway overbridge in Sector 100. The cost of the entire project has been estimated at Rs 1,800 crore,” Singhal added.
HUDA administrator Yashpal Yadav said, “We hope the litigation will be resolved soon, as the Punjab and Haryana High Court has been hearing it and the decision is about to be announced.”
The Dwarka expressway, also known as the Northern Peripheral Road (NPR) in Gurgaon, has been of prime concern for the central and state governments. In October 2016, NHAI took over the construction of NPR from the Haryana government and named it NH 248-B.
Land litigation, however, has caused inordinate delay, and this wait has become a big worry for homebuyers in sectors 81-115, who have been waiting for the expressway to become operational for the past five years.
“We were happy that NHAI will start construction of the elevated corridor at the earliest, but this delay due to litigation is worrying,” said a homebuyer, Pradeed Rahi.
After NHAI took over the project, the expressway’s length was extended from the Gurgaon border to the vicinity of Shiv Murti in Mahipalpur.
