Road work slows traffic around Delhi’s India Gate

Driving along the C-hexagon at India Gate has become difficult in the past fortnight as the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) has been carrying out repair work to level the road. CPWD, which scraped off the top layer of asphalt on the 200-metre-long stretch between Akbar Road and Ashoka Road, has been struggling to complete the work due to intermittent rain the past week.

The work was originally scheduled to be completed last week, a senior CPWD official said. “We couldn’t complete
the work due to rain,” said the official.

Though road repair permissions are usually not granted during the rainy season, the stretch was taken up due to the ongoing work at the National War Memorial project at India Gate. CPWD has to upgrade the road infrastructure around the under-construction memorial, which is likely to be completed in a month or two.

Officials, however, said the situation is likely to get worse as CPWD has to further scrape the road surface to bring down the level before it can re-carpet it. “The milling work is still pending. We had to scrape 210mm of the road surface; so far we have completed just 90mm. We can do the work only if it doesn’t rain. We are hoping to complete the work in the next few days,” said an official on condition of anonymity.

With thousands of vehicles using the C-hexagon daily, the stretch has become a traffic bottleneck and the green spaces around the stretch have been engulfed in thick blanket of dust. The Delhi Traffic Police have asked CPWD to expedite the work. Meanwhile, it has deployed additional staff to ensure smooth movement of traffic in the area.

Alok Kumar, joint commissioner of police (traffic), said, “We have already taken up the issued with CPWD officials by saying that the damaged road has led to slowing down of the traffic movement and the uneven patch may cause accidents. They have told us that the re-carpeting will be done soon after monsoon ends. They believe the construction material would be washed away if it rains. Adequate deployment of traffic personnel is done to ensure smooth movement of traffic. We increase the deployment during peak hours and on weekends.”