Delhi and Haryana Chief Ministers Inaugurated Delhi Faridabad Elevated Highway

The much awaited Delhi Faridabad Elevated Highway connecting Delhi and Haryana was inaugurated by Smt Sheila Dikshit, Chief Minister of Delhi and Shri Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Chief Minister of Haryana. The function was presided over by Shri Kamal Nath, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways (MoRT&H), Government of India in the presence of Shri R P N Singh - Minister of State MoRT&H, Shri Ramesh Kumar - Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) from South Delhi, Shri Avtar Singh Bhadana – Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) from Faridabad, Shri R.S. Gujral – Secretary, MoRT&H, Shri Brijeshwar Singh - Chairman of National Highways Authority of India and Shri Ajit Gulabchand - Chairman and Managing Director of Hindustan Construction Company (HCC). The elevated highway has been completed nearly a month ahead of its stipulated date of December 22, 2010.

The Delhi Faridabad Elevated Highway, popularly known as the Badarpur Elevated Highway Project was commissioned by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and has been designed, engineered and constructed by the HCC Group with an investment of nearly Rs.600 crore. The project will significantly improve travel time by over 40 minutes (with large fuel savings) between the rapidly developing city of Faridabad and Delhi, and will serve as a boon to both residents and interstate traffic alike, on the Delhi-Faridabad-Mathura-Agra route (National Highway 2).

“HCC is committed to delivering responsible infrastructure to the country. I congratulate my team of engineers who has completed this project ahead of schedule despite numerous challenges. Equally importantly, the water conservation and ground water recharge initiatives undertaken in this project make it one of the first water positive infrastructure facilities in the country”, said Mr Ajit Gulabchand, Chairman and Managing Director, HCC.

Mr Brijeshwar Singh, Chairman, NHAI said, “We are happy about the early completion of this Public Private Partnership, which is another commendable project to HCC’s credit. The elevated highway will offer immense respite to the commuters between Delhi and Haryana and will also play a significant role in the development of Faridabad as a commercial hub”.

In this project the commuters shall be able to use the facility of daily pass and monthly pass which will allow commuters of the Delhi Faridabad Elevated Highway uninterrupted travel without the ordeal of paying toll multiple times in a day thereby saving additional time and fuel cost. The details of the single entry fee, multiple entry fee and monthly passes are presented in the table below:



The National Highways Authority of India was constituted by an act of Parliament, the National Highways Authority of India Act, 1988. The Authority was operationalised in February, 1995 It is responsible for the development, maintenance and management of National Highways entrusted to it and for matters connected or incidental thereto.. Out of total 70548 Km length of National Highways in the country, 54464 Km is under National Highway Development Programme under various phases. NHAI is implementing NHDP in 49253 Km length out of which 14436 Km has already been completed. The length of 8903 Km is under improvement.

Badarpur jams may ease soon

Commuters getting stuck in jams at the Badarpur border crossing can expect a smooth ride from September-end. National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) officials said the elevated stretch will be opened to traffic heading from Ashram to Faridabad on September 15. Subsequently, traffic heading from Faridabad to Delhi will be allowed on the second carriageway from September 25.

Sources said traffic diversions are in place to complete the remaining work on the road under the flyover. Hindustan Construction Company (HCC), developer of this 4-km elevated corridor, has set October 1 as the deadline for making the entire project operational. "But initially, traffic heading towards Faridabad will be allowed on the right carriageway. From September 25 it will be shifted to the left carriageway,'' said a senior NHAI official.

He added that the traffic diversion plan will be put in place well ahead if this gets implemented to help guide commuters. "Traffic from Delhi to Mehrauli-Badarpur Road, Jaitpur Road, Sarai bypass, Sector 37 will move on the left side on the ground road while traffic from Haryana to MB Road or Ashram will move on the right side on the ground road,'' the official said. From September 25, however, commuters heading from Ashram to MB Road, Sarai bypass, Sector 37 and beyond will be diverted to the left elevated carriageway and those heading from Haryana towards MB Road and Delhi will be diverted to the right elevated carriageway.

NHAI officials said though the official deadline of the project was December, the construction company has been able to complete work in record time. "Since major works are likely to be completed by October 1, there are chances of allowing the contractor to collect toll tax from that date. But we have not yet given the go-ahead,'' said a senior NHAI official.

The toll tax per trip per vehicle has already been fixed. Cars and jeeps will have to shell out Rs 20, light commercial vehicles need to pay Rs 30 and for buses and trucks one trip will cost Rs 60.

Haryana approves funds for Metro to Faridabad

Haryana government on Monday approved a budgetary allocation of Rs 1,588.6 crore for the extension of Delhi Metro to Faridabad. The new Metro link from Badarpur to YMCA Chowk will hugely benefit residents of the NCR city and work is expected to start in a couple of months.

The financial approval came at a meeting chaired by chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. A government spokesperson said the total cost of the 13.8-km Metro project has been estimated at Rs 2,533 crore, of which the Centre will bear Rs 544.4 crore. The CM claimed the project is stipulated to take off in October this year and will be completed by March 31, 2013. "It will take at least three years to complete the project after work starts on ground. We are not taking any more work ahead of the Commonwealth Games,'' said a DMRC official.

Haryana government had approved Metro connectivity to Faridabad in March 2007. The project was subsequently approved by DMRC in December 2007 but was waiting clearance from the Delhi government and Centre.

This elevated stretch an extension of the Central Secretariat-Badarpur line of Delhi Metro will have nine stations up to YMCA Chowk. The Metro line up to Badarpur is likely to become operational by October.

Faridabad will be the last mega city in NCR to get Metro connectivity. While the Metro has already reached Noida and Gurgaon, it will extend up to Ghaziabad next year. Meanwhile, Haryana government has already announced to extend the Metro link to Ballabhgarh. Last year, Central government had set up a three-member committee to facilitate the extension of Delhi Metro to Faridabad and Bahadurgarh.

Badarpur flyover set to cross last land hurdle

The 4.4-km Badarpur-Faridabad flyover project now faces the last hurdle of getting about 2.5 acres of land in Badarpur. There are five land dispute cases related to the project pending in Delhi High Court. After months of delay, Delhi government has finally moved to take possession of an alternate plot for Badarpur police station which has to be shifted to pave way for the project.

National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) officials say the handing over of this plot to the private developer, Badarpur-Faridabad Tollway Ltd (BFT), is crucial since the main interchange for Mehrauli will come up on this stretch. A few days after the union road transport and highways minister Kamal Nath urged chief minister Sheila Dikshit to complete land acquisition on this patch, the land and building department issued a notification on Tuesday to take possession of an alternate plot within 15 days.

Officials said the lieutenant-governor resorted to an emergency clause to take possession of the plot. "As soon as the government takes possession of the land, we will move there into porta cabins. At a later stage, we will go for a proper building plan for the police station,'' said B L Sandhu, additional commissioner of police (land and building).

Delhi government sources said that though this panchayat land had been allotted for the police station earlier, a person claiming to be the owner of the plot had got a stay from Delhi High Court. "Now Delhi government is going to court, asking for lifting of the stay. We hope to shift to the new site soon,'' added Sandhu.

On their part, a senior NHAI official said, "We are concerned about the physical handover of entire land for execution of the project than the government taking possession on paper. We were supposed to hand over the entire land to the developer four months back.''

Meanwhile, the five cases related to the land on this portion will be coming up for hearing in the next couple of days.

Although this 4.4-km signal-free corridor was added to the list of Games-related projects later, handing over of the land on the Delhi side had been repeatedly delayed. Earlier, the DDA and NHAI were bickering over how land for the project was to be handed over and also over the compensation rates. Sources said that only a few days back, Delhi government decided to finalise the compensation rate by July 15.

The elevated corridor will be a crucial link between Delhi and Faridabad. The stretch, which includes a 3-km long six-lane elevated highway, was originally scheduled to be completed by December 2010 but was expected to be expedited to catch the Games rush in October. Only 15% of the work has been completed so far.

The project has already been delayed several times. The Haryana government had cleared the project in 2006 but Delhi government and Delhi Urban Arts Commission cleared it only in January last year.

Badarpur Flyover Progress Report

New year 2009 seems to have brought new hopes for the city of Faridabad. This long neglected district which was once a glorious industrial township was recently being dubbed as Gurgaons poor cousin. Connectivity was a major bottleneck.

A flyover at Badarpur was proposed for long due. After almost two decades of flip-flops, the contract was finally awarded to Hindustan Construction. The project is scheduled to be completed by end 2010.

The progress is also visible. On both sides of NH-2 digging of roads apparently to create provision of service roads is quite visible. Infact at some places the depth is so much that even today one could feel as if it is an elevated road.

However, this road might mean bad news to some of the existing commercial establishments. The upcoming mall at Destination Point, which was earlier being developed by Senior Builders, rechristened as Indiabulls Mega Mart, could be affected by the flyover because of non-access from the new flyover. The IT Park by Vatika group could also face the same issue.

The flyover is to conclude someone near the Sarai Chowk, beyond Sec 37. The Abacus Techno Park developed by Crown-Aerens could be marginally affected depending on the end point of the flyover. However, the prestigious Crown-Interiorz mall by the same developer looks beyond the concluding point and could rather get the connectivity advantage and may attract visitors from adjoining Sarita Vihar and other parts of South Delhi. Similarly the RPS IT Park may also remain unaffected.

Exact impacts would be known as and when things shape up.