Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/delhi-news/work-on-new-ring-road-to-unclog-delhi-kicks-off-101642184889741 / Jan 15, 2022 01:08 AM IST
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has started construction work on the much-delayed Urban Extension Road-II (UER-II) project, also referred to as the third Ring Road of Delhi, senior NHAI officials said. The road is expected to be ready by October 2023 they added.
Conceived in the early 2000, UER-II could prove to be cru-cial for decongesting the national capital. The 75.71Iu-nlong corridor will connect four national highways (NH-1, 10, 8 and 2) and provide seamless connectivity between north, northwest Delhi and IGI airport and Gurugram. The Rs 7715.6 crore-project will also pass through around 25 villages in Delhi, starting from GT Karnal
Road.
The project, which was to be initially executed by DDA, was approved by Delhi’s apex traffic and transport planning body, Unified Traffic and Transportation and Infra-structure Planning and Engineering Centre (UTTIPEC), in 2016. But due to delay in land acquisition related issues, the project was
transferred to the NHAI in April 2018. The highways authority has got permission to cut and transplant 6,600 trees from the Delhi govern-ment, of which 80% will be transplanted along the pro-posed corridor, according to the state government’s tree transplantation policy. “The work to transplant close to 4,000 trees along the corridor has started. We have trans-
planted around 70o-odd trees so far,” said a second senior NHAI official who asked not to be named.
But there is now a growing conundrum over where to transplant the trees. The highways authority asked the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to provide land for around 4,000 of the 6,600 trees that need to be reposi-tioned. The DDA has said NHAI will need to find the land.
A senior NHAI official said, “Tree transplantation is the foremost activity that needs to be carried out to prepare
the site for construction. We have written to DDA to provide us approximately 6.4 hectares of land, preferably close to the site, for trans-planting around 4,000 trees.”
Additionally, the NHAI has to carry out compensatory afforestation, since 54.87 hectares of deemed forest land was diverted for the project. The NHAI has got 55 hectares of land from the DDA for affor-estation.
While approving the diversion of deemed forest land under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 last year, the Regional Empowered Committee,
under the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change, had asked NHAI to transplant trees as far as possible.
“Usually, transplantation is not done under compensatory afforestation. But the committee has asked us to trans-plant as many trees as pos-sible while giving the permis-sion, so we are planning to transplant around 4,000 trees,” the official said.
The project
Of the 75.71 kips, 38.1km will be constructed in Delhi covering a majority of rural villages, especially on the periphery, in north and south west Delhi and connecting them to the IGI Airport and rest of Delhi. The access controlled highway will pass through villages such as Narela, Bawana, Alipur, Holami Kalan, Mundka, Chhawla, etc.
The pre-construction work started in November. The work will be carried out at a fast pcae as we have all necessary permissions. We have to complete the project by October 2023, said a senior NHAI official.