India's first smart and green e-Highway to miss another Deadline

The Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway, the 136-km green and smart expressway intended to ease traffic by bypassing Delhi on its western border, is set to miss the August deadline on account of slow pace of work.

Issue :

• Though final touches are being given to the 83-km stretch of the Kundli-Manesar section, being executed at a cost of Rs1,863 crore, yet it would not be completed this month.
• Though no formal date for the completion has be scheduled yet the state government was hopeful that the project might be thrown open to the public by October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
• The 53-km Palwal-Manesar stretch of the 136-km expressway, completed at a cost of Rs457.81 crore, was opened to traffic in April 2016.
• Ongoing monsoon season and certain technical issues are being blamed for ‘slight delay’ in completion of the project.

Background :

• The original deadline for the expressway, conceived during Prime Ministership of late Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2002, was July 2009. However, on account of litigation and other controversies the project continued to hang fire during the 10-year rule of the Congress Government led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
• The Manohar Lal Khattar government put the project on fast-track after resolving the legal issues.

About Eastern Peripheral Highway (NH-2) :

• The Eastern Peripheral Expressway was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 27, 2018 in view of bringing down the pollution levels in the National Capital Region. It is the first smart and green 6-lane highway of India.
• The expressway, also known as KGP (Kundli-Ghaziabad-Palwal) expressway, is specifically designed to connect Kundli and Palwal in Haryana via Ghaziabad to reduce the congestion on the roads of the NCR region caused by the vehicles going towards Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
• The 135-km Eastern Peripheral Expressway is a part of the enormous Peripheral Expressway Project that consists of two highways-Eastern Peripheral Expressway and Western Peripheral Expressway. These 270-km long expressways will be surrounding Delhi like a ring road.
• The route would by-pass Delhi on the eastern side and go through Haryana and Uttar Pradesh crossing the districts of Sonipat, Faridabad, Baghpat, Ghaziabad, and Gautam Budh Nagar.
• This long six-lane Eastern Expressway corridor will be connecting NH-1 at Kundli and NH-2 at Palwal. En route it will be crossing the Yamuna River and three other national highways. It will cross NH-58 at Murad Nagar, NH-24 at Dasna, and NH-91 at Beelakbarpur.

Benefits of Eastern Peripheral Expressway :

• The expressway will help in reducing the traffic on the Delhi inner roads by offering a direct connectivity to the NCR region.
• It will help in diverting more than 2 lakh vehicles passing through the National Capital to this bypass.
• With a signal free connectivity, the expressway will link all the National Capital Region areas in the east of Delhi and reduce the traveling time to reach Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Greater Noida, Sonipat, and Palwal.
• The diversion of the traffic from NCR to this expressway will reduce the pollution levels in this region.

Facilities on this Eastern Peripheral Expressway :

• Video incident detection system
• Over-speed checking system
• Pavement management systems
• Weigh-in-motion
• Warning devices
• Fibre optic network
• It has a closed tolling system in which toll will be collected only for the distance travelled and not for the entire length
• Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system for faster toll collection and uninterrupted travel experience
• Concrete roads, 7 interchanges, 430 bridges, RoBs, flyovers, and underpasses
• Wayside amenities for EPE users such as washrooms, motels, petrol pumps, shops, rest areas, restaurants, repair services, etc.

Why is Eastern Peripheral Expressway Eco-Friendly ?

Eastern Peripheral Expressway is an eco-friendly expressway because:-

• It helps in reducing the pollution levels in the National Capital Region.
• It uses 100% solar power for lighting.
• It has the facility of rainwater harvesting system.
• It has vertical gardens facilitated with the solar power system and drip irrigation.
• It boasts of a cycle track of 2.5 meters.

By: Harman Sandhu