Gurgaon: Traffic police will soon have a big test on their hands as barricading of lanes to build a U-turn underpass at the Gurgaon-Delhi border on the expressway has begun. As of now, one lane has been cordoned off. This will increase progressively to 15 of the 32 lanes the expressway has at the Sirhaul border.An official of Ram Kumar Contractor — which is building the underpass that is meant to take cars on the Gurgaon-Delhi carriageway back into Gurgaon without having to cross over to Delhi and take a U-turn at Rajokri — said work on the underpass “box”, which will involve closing of 15 lanes of the expressway, will start from next week. This will test the traffic plan because the expressway sees huge traffic volume during morning and evening rush hour and any bottleneck can trigger a jam tailing back kilometres.The underpass will be under the area where a toll plaza earlier stood. The traffic plan laid out by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) indicates work on the three stages of the project won’t follow the original sequence. Originally, work was supposed to begin with the box at the centre of the expressway, involving eight lanes each on the Delhi-Gurgaon side (right hand side, RHS) and the Gurgaon-Delhi side (left hand side, LHS). This was supposed to be followed by work on six lanes in the middle of each carriageway, under which the ramp was to be built. Finally, exits would be built under two lanes on the extremity of either carriageway.However, with NHAI yet to be handed over 1.22 acres of land on the LHS, work on that side is held up for the moment. Instead, in the first ‘phase’, which is stage 3 in the original plan, two lanes will be cordoned off on the extremity of the RHS, to build an exit, of which one lane has already been cordoned off. Colonel Subhash Yadav, general manager of the expressway operator Skylark, said: “We’ve closed one lane of the Gurgaon to Delhi carriageway.”“We began work on the Ambience mall underpass on the Gurgaon to Delhi carriageway, where we’re currently relocating all utilities,” said an official of RK Contractor.TOI has learnt that one of the reasons why work has begun on stage 3 first is keeping traffic flow in mind. “We started work at a spot where there isn’t much traffic movement. By next week, we’ll extend the cordon over six lanes on the RHS. Within a week, we’ll also start pre-construction activity on the Shankar Chowk elevated U-turn,” added the official of RK Contractor.NHAI will share 50% of the cost of the underpass, with Ambience and DLF footing 25% of the bill each. For the Shankar Chowk elevated U-turn, NHAI will bear 75% of the cost, with MCG paying the balance 25%. The total cost of the two projects is estimated at Rs 102.94 crore.Gurgaon traffic police said they are monitoring the situation. ACP (highways) Satyapal Singh said: “Our personnel are looking after the expressway, and we’ll ensure that there are no bottlenecks.”

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