6 months on, Golf Course Extn Road re-carpeted again

The Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) has started re-carpeting the Golf Course Extension Road (GCER), less than six months after it had carried out a similar repair work on the six-kilometre stretch.

V Umashankar, chief executive officer of the GMDA, said the re-carpeting work is only a temporary measure for the road and is likely to continue for three months. He further said that long-term measure — including widening of the stretch, making it signal-free to ensure concentration of traffic is evenly distributed and improving the quality of road construction by using superior materials that can withstand weights of both heavy vehicles and varying weather conditions — has been planned by the GMDA.

Maintaining that a structural integrity tests carried out by the GMDA last October revealed that the base of the GCER is extremely weak and needs to be relayed anew, Umashankar said the ongoing work largely involved filling potholes before the arrival of monsoon.

“The condition of the road is such that it required complete relaying. The re-carpeting is only staunching the wound, relaying is the larger, long-term solution. The road was constructed in a way that it could contain a certain amount of traffic. Now, a lot of heavy vehicles ply on the road and the road surface is unable to withstand it,” Umashankar said, adding that in March, a presentation was made before the authority by GMDA officials, where all attendees were apprised of the fact that the road needs to be reworked in its entirety.

The authority assembles to approve or reject key infrastructure- and- maintenance-related proposals. The body includes the Haryana chief minister, the Gurugram member of Parliament, the local MLA, GMDA officials and residents of the city. Umashankar said as part of the long-term solution of GCER, GMDA had zeroed in on two options in March.

“The first option was to do a complete relaying of the four-lane road with a higher capacity of sustaining heavy volume of vehicles as the road is almost functioning as a national highway now instead of an internal sector road. The second option was to do a long-term treatment by widening the road and making it signal-free. Both these options were presented before the authority, and they chose the latter,” said Umashankar. By making the road signal-free, officials said, it can be ensured that vehicles are not stationery thereby reducing pressure on the road.

The authority has only met on three occasions, the last one being in March, where the GMDA’s annual budget was passed.

Umashankar said the funding for the road-widening project, which includes taking up of the space left between the road beam and green belt on GCER and increasing the stretch by two lanes, is currently pending with the state government for approval.

The six-kilometre road between Vatika Chowk and Ghata T-point is one of the most important stretches in the city as commuters travelling towards New Delhi and Faridabad from the Golf Course Road, Southern Peripheral Road (SPR) and Sohna Road use it to avoid the congested Mehrauli-Gurgaon (MG) Road.

As per GMDA officials, more than 3,000 vehicles ply on the GCER every hour.

Furthermore, heavy commercial vehicles travelling from or towards Alwar and Manesar also use this stretch to reach New Delhi and Faridabad. Last November, the GMDA had initiated re-carpeting of GCER, only for it to completely crumble by March.