PM’s office may step in to resolve delays in Dwarka Expressway project

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) may step in to resolve the issue of the delaying of the Dwarka Expressway project. A high-level meeting has been called by the PMO on Wednesday to address pending issues, officials said.

The ₹7,500 crore Dwarka Expressway project, which was initially planned in 2006, has been delayed for more than a decade due to land acquisition and legal hurdles.

Union minister of road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari had called a meeting last month with top officials from the transport ministry, Delhi Development Authority (DDA), Delhi chief secretary, and NHAI, seeking to resolve the impasse between the central and the Delhi government over the issue of felling of trees along the Delhi package of the expressway.

“ A meeting has been called on 21st November by the PMO to resolve pending issues with the Dwarka Expressway,” a senior official at the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) said.

However, officials at the Delhi forest department said there has been no official communication so far regarding the meeting.

According to senior ministry officials, the DDA had agreed to provide the land to NHAI for afforestation of the trees and NHAI was to bear the entire cost. The project involves felling or translocation of around 13,000 trees.

“NHAI is pressing for the transplantation of around 9,000 trees and DDA was agreed to provide the land. One of the demands of the forest department was for DDA to provide the land at one stretch for the translocation of these trees,” the NHAI official added.

Hindustan Times had earlier reported that PMO had written to Delhi lieutenant governor Anil Baijal seeking his intervention to expedite the required clearances.

“We were successfully able to put across our concerns to PMO through sustained social media campaigns. As a result, PMO on direction from the PM has called a high-level meeting on Dwarka Expressway to resolve Delhi side deadlock of package 1 and 2,” said Prakhar Sahay, joint secretary of the Dwarka Expressway Welfare Association (DXPWA), which represents 175 residential societies with 1,35,000 homes.

Last month, homebuyers had even written to the Bharatiya Janata Party, Indian National Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party, seeking their stand on the stalled project.

Gadkari had last month said that he had personally spoken with Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal over the required clearances from the state government. Gadkari had said the Delhi CM had assured that the clearances would be provided.

The Dwarka Expressway is planned to be implemented in five packages. The first package of 5.3 km is from Shiv Murti Intersection near Mahipalpur in New Delhi till Rail under Bridge (RuB) near Dwarka Sector 21, the second of 4.2 km from RuB to Haryana border, package 3 from Haryana border to the Basai rail overbridge (ROB) in Dawrka- 10.2 Km, package 4 from Basai RoB to NH-8 – SPR intersection - 8.77 Km, and the fifth package will be 5 km length providing of Western Airport Connectivity from Dwarka Expressway through tunnel, the ministry had said in an official statement.