Monday, 20 November 2017

Government Invites Bids for Consultant for 4-km Tunnel from Dwarka Expressway

NEW DELHI: Delhi will get its biggest tunnel road, about four kilometers long, to link Gurugram and Dwarka to the International Airport. The government invited bids on Friday for appointing a consultant for this ambitious project, proposing to complete the same in the next three years.

Dwarka-Expressway project

The present approach to the airport from the Millennium city is a highly congested one through the National Highway-8, also known as the Delhi-Gurugram Expressway. An under-construction ‘Dwarka Expressway’ will act as a by-pass of NH-8 from Gurugram to Dwarka. The plan finalized now is to build a 4-km tunnel road from the Dwarka Expressway straight to the T3 terminal of the Delhi Airport.

This deep 4-km long tunnel for vehicles is proposed to run along the alignment of the existing underground Delhi Airport metro line from T3 Terminal to Dwarka Sector 21 Metro station. Passengers destined for the International airport from Gurugram by 2020 will be able to take Dwarka Expressway and then the tunnel road to reach the airport, bypassing the entire NH-8 road.

Residents of the bustling Dwarka area will have the same faster option. The technical consultant to be engaged for the project has been asked to advise on the feasibility of the said tunnel and other pre-construction activities like having its junction with Dwarka Expressway.

The tunnel, one built, will offer “western connectivity” to the International Airport. Both the Dwarka Expressway and the new tunnel road will be executed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). This comes out of the urge of the government to decongest NH-8, where the intensity of traffic has increased significantly and there is urgent requirement of augmentation of capacity for safe and efficient movement of traffic, as per the bid document floated on Friday.

“The standards of output required from the appointed consultants are of international level both in terms of quality and adherence to the agreed time schedule. NHAI has assigned works of consultancy services for DPR of Dwarka Expressway to the technical consultant M/s AECOM. The consultant (of tunnel road project) is required to co-ordinate with M/s AECOM as well as other stakeholders viz. AAI, DAIL, DDA, DMRC and finalize the alignment & configuration of Tunnel Road accordingly,” the bid document says.

It has also been mentioned that since it is envisaged that the tunnel road project “would be completed and opened to traffic after 3 years”, the traffic demand estimates should be made accordingly.

The Centre has been pushing aggressively for projects in and around Delhi, including fast-tracking of the Delhi-Meerut expressway which is set to be built in record time. The first phase of India’s maiden 14-lane highway will be completed next month, road transport and highway minister Nitin Gadkari had said on Tuesday.

The entire 96-kilometre expressway will be completed by 2019, the minister had said.
Source : https://goo.gl/aGuEJn

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