In the next few years, owning a house in the
suburbs of Delhi is going to be as good as living in Delhi. Though upcoming residential hubs beyond Noida,
Dharuhera, Bhiwadi, Indirapuram, Faridabad, and Sonepat, sound remote now,
considering their distance from the national capital, a slew of improved
highways and the Metro connectivity is set change this perception and make
these localities more attractive for buyers. Town planners also believe the
time has come when residential development has to move away from Delhi.
“So far, the alternate residential development has happened
around Delhi, which is known as ribbon development. But to make the capital
city sustainable you need to provide more affordable options to people outside Delhi. A good transport system, primarily rail, will
make the system sustainable,” says H R Suri, former president of Institute of Town Planners, India.
While, Metro Rail and improved rail connectivity is
yet to happen, the currently far-flung emerging
residential destinations are set to get highspeed road corridors, which
will reduce the travel time drastically. “The focus of all expansion and
widening of national highways starting and terminating in Delhi is to make them signalfree by eliminating traffic
bottlenecks. Until there is seamless connectivity to key facilities in the
capital from suburbs, decongesting Delhi will only remain a dream. The highway development
work will redefine growth story of areas along the road network,” says a senior
official of National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).
It’s not just the highway regulator; even the
timely push for completion of road infrastructure projects ahead of the Commonwealth
Games by Delhi is going to improve connectivity to areas like Faridabad, Noida
and Greater Noida in the next one and half years.
Delhi-Meerut Expressway
This proposed 61-km long expressway will change the
development along the corridor and is one of the priorities of the highway
regulator. The NHAI has already finalized alignment, and feasibility study will
be over soon. Officials claim once completed, the travel-time between Delhi and Meerut may be reduced to approximately 45 minutes, from
the usual two hours.
Officials say those commuting between Delhi and Ghaziabad, Indirapuram
(NH-24) will benefit the most from this project. According to the proposal, the
existing stretch in Delhi, which is being widened to eight lanes, would
subsequently be converted to 16 lanes, letting commuters zip through the
congested corridor during peak hours. A part of NH-24 — from Delhi to Dasna in Ghaziabad, will form onethird of the expressway.
NHAI sources said eight more lanes would be added
to the under-construction eight-lane grade separator at Ghazipur crossing.
Delhi PWD has set April 2010 as deadline for completing the Ghazipur project.
Delhi-Jaipur corridor
With the Delhi-Gurgaon stretch of NH-8 converted to
an eight-lane access control highways, Haryana’s financial capital has become
the preferred residential destination. While the housing-friendly policies of
the state government have pushed growth of Manesar and Dharuhera, what is going
to accelerate their growth is the strengthening of Gurgaon-Jaipur stretch. The
widening of the Gurgaon-Jaipur expressway from the existing four lanes to six
lanes has already started, and once completed, it will make the stretch between
Delhi and Jaipur signal-free. The project is expected to
be completed by June 2011. Haryana government has already made an announcement
to push for extending Delhi Metro service to industrial township of Manesar.
Delhi-Sonepat corridor
Although this is one of the finest corridor for
commuters and has been in the top-list of developers, the approximately 13-km
bottleneck between Mukarba Chowk and Sanghu border has been the major
roadblock. NHAI officials said the tender to complete the remaining work has
been awarded recently and it will be completed ahead of the games. “This
stretch has been an eyesore for the past eight years. Once completed, the
connectivity to Sonepat will improve significantly. Since there is a provision
to reward the contractor in case he completes the work early, we are hopeful
the stretch will improve before the stipulated time frame,” a senior NHAI
official said.
The much delayed Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway connecting NH-2, NH-8, NH-10 and NH-1
is now expected to be completely operational by October next year, which will
improve the non-stop connectivity from Kundli in Sonepat to Gurgaon and
Faridabad. “We have extended the deadline up to December 2010. But the
developer has made commitment to complete it by the Commonwealth Games,” a
senior official of Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development
Corporation said.
Significantly, some of the residential and
commercial developments in Sonepat are largely dependent on this 135-km
high-speed corridor.
UP Link Road
Yet another improvement of road network — the
3.4-km UP Link Road — connecting
Akshardham temple to Noida, is expected to bring major relief to
Noida-bound traffic, making commuting between Shantivan and Greater Noida
almost signal-free, barring one red light.
The ambitious Delhi government project to be completed before the
games includes addition of one lane each on the sides, besides construction of one
single carriageway and one double carriageway flyovers on three traffic
intersections to make movement signal-free. While the first flyover with a
single carriageway would cover the stretch at Mayur Vihar Phase I red light,
the second flyover with dual carriageway will do away with two traffic red
lights — one at Samachar Apartments Chowk and another near the
Delhi-Noida-Delhi toll road.
Faridabad Stretch (NH-2)
Faridabad, the other emerging within-reach residential
destination, is now set to get seamless connectivity with Delhi. After several delays, the ambitious 6-lane
elevated-corridor project covering the congested stretch of Badarpur has taken
off.
According to NHAI officials, the Rs 340-crore
project is expected to be completed by September 2010. The non-stop link starts
from near NTPC, Badarpur and ends near Sector-37 crossing in Faridabad. The entire elevated corridor has five major
intersections (two in Delhi
and three in Haryana), namely, NTPC junction, Sarai junction, Jaitpur junction,
Mehrauli junction and Sector-37 junction.
