Greater Noida: Land hurdle cleared for road linking Knowledge Park 3 with LG chowk

GREATER NOIDA: The Greater Noida authority is finally likely to build a 1.5 kilometre stretch of a key road that connects LG Chowk with the education hub in sector Knowledge Park 3 area, as the private firm owning the land has agreed to give it away for the road project after 15 years following negotiations, officials said on Friday.

Greater Noida authority chief executive officer (CEO) Ravi Kumar NG has given in-principle his go ahead, approving ₹31 crore budget for the project, they said.

The authority is likely to issue a tender to finalise a contractor to build this 1.5km stretch that remained incomplete for all these years, causing inconvenience to thousands of daily commuters, they added.

“We have completed the process related to the tender that is likely to be issued shortly inviting the proposals from the interested companies so that we can finalise one. The authority will build the stretch so that the commuters can easily travel through this crucial road that connects LG Chowk with the education hub located in sector Knowledge Park-I, II and III areas,” said Shrilaxmi VS, additional chief executive officer, Greater Noida authority.

The authority is likely to take six months to build this six-lane road stretch. Currently, this road is half (three-lane) built from education hub to LG Chowk, and the other half of 3-lanes are not built from LG Chowk to education hub area due to the land issue.

Notably, the music company, T-Series, owned the land on which stretch of the road was to be built. It continued refusing to give this land for the road project despite requests. After the Greater Noida authority CEO started fresh discussions they agreed to give the land for the road project.

The LG Chowk is located at Greater Noida’s one of the key roads that begins from Surajpur at old Dadri road and connects Eastern Peripheral Expressway and Bulandshahr towards Kasna area. And this partially built road -- from LG Chowk to Greater Noida’s Education hub -- is half opened for commuters. It causes the commuters to face traffic congestion particularly during the peak morning and evening hours. The students, office-goers and others have to waste time in negotiating the traffic.

Besides, this education hub road is being connected with Noida’s sectors 144, 145 and 146 among other areas through a new bridge being built across Hindon.

“Once this bridge across Hindon river is ready in a few months, the education hub road will be directly connected to Noida’s busy areas. The authority has expedited the work after resolving the land dispute also because of this fact that this road will witness heavy traffic once the bridge across the Hindon is ready that is more than 50% already built,” a Greater Noida authority official said.

The authority will build a central verge, drainage network and also do horticulture work to beautify this road that witnessed frequent road accidents because it was half built, and the commuters used to travel in the wrong direction from LG Chowk to Education hub, officials said.

Once the half stretch is built, the commuters will travel through this road with ease and also reach Noida from Greater Noida in five minutes, they added.

“We had been demanding for construction of this half stretch for the last many years because the commuters used to face huge problems. And the new commuters in the city used to witness all the more trouble here as half of this road was opened for the users, and the other half was not built,” said Harendra Bhati, founder member of active citizen team, a citizens group.

Once completed, the bridge across Hindon and this road stretch, it will alleviate the need for commuters heading towards LG Chowk and Surajpur to traverse the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway up to Pari Chowk, reducing travel distance by at least 10 kms and ease congestion around Pari Chowk.