20 years and several missed deadlines later, Rani Jhansi Road flyover yet to see light of day

NEW DELHI: Even after 20 years and several missed deadlines, the 1.6-km long Rani Jhansi Road flyover project is yet to see completion. So far, Rs 724 crore has been spent on the project.

Residents, shopowners and hoteliers along the stretch have lost all faith in the project. However, Lieutenant Governor and the civic bodies have predicted that the work will be over soon.

"The flyover has various problems including permissions, water lines, material used, among many other things. People say that this flyover can never be built. The work started when I was in school and we were asked to leave our house for the flyover work. We got compensation but there are many who have not," said Ratanlal Sharma who runs a juice shop at Azad market. Sharma is not the only one. The shop owners of Azad Market, Sadar Bazar and adjacent places think that the flyover can never get completed. A 1.8-km long flyover, which comes under North Corporation, shows no sign of completion even 15 years after it was first conceived. The project is intended to cover Rani Jhansi Road, Bara Hindu Rao, DCM Chowk, Azad Market and Baraf Khana Chowk to reach St Stephen's Hospital. The original deadline for its completion was 2010, before the Commonwealth Games. No new date was set for its completion after the deadline was missed.

The construction work of the grade separator has been moving at a slow pace as the civic agency is yet to get possession of land from the Delhi government and the Railways. The civic agency is not able to construct new sections of the flyover as there are four major water pipelines in the area. The incomplete flyover project of North Delhi Municipal Corporation has come under the Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG) scanner for inadequate planning. The main problem was the presence of residential, commercial, and government properties that were to be relocated. These issues were not factored in and hence not compensated. The project has missed several deadlines, leading to a cost overrun by Rs 547 crore. The cost of the project was originally pegged at Rs 177 crore that further increased to Rs 724 crore. The project was conceived in 1998 but was commissioned by the erstwhile MCD in 2006. The construction work started in 2007. The agencies responsible for removing the bottlenecks kept passing the buck instead of finding solutions, leading to the delay.

However, the North corporation officials reportedly said recently that they are given a new push to this project.