GURUGRAM: The service road on the Delhi-Jaipur expressway at IFFCO Chowk has emerged as a major pain point for people travelling towards MG Road. For several months, since work began to shift a sewer line at the junction in April, the road has remained dug up. As a result, commuters have had to contend with dust and an uneven surface as they make the journey from the expressway onto MG Road. The GMDA, which has been supervising the shifting of the sewer line since April, said the work will take another couple of months to complete. Residents and commuters, meanwhile, continue to suffer. “I travel to and from my office in Sector 31 daily. The road is a headache for everyone but more so for me because I already have a back pain problem, which gets exacerbated due to the bumpy ride home five days a week,” said Prerna Agarwal, who resides in a residential society on MG Road. “If I try taking other routes, my journey time will almost double simply because of the traffic during peak hours, so I have no other option,” she said. The road, now, seems more like a dirt track, a visit to the stretch by TOI revealed. Although all lanes are open to commuters, vehicles must navigate a maze of bumps and ditches. “The situation is worse at night because the uneven portions are not easily visible. This situation creates scope for accidents as everyone is swerving or slowing down suddenly to avoid the uneven parts,” said Hiren Shah, another resident. The sewer line was supposed to be moved prior to the construction of a flyover at the junction and the execution of the traffic improvement project there, which was taken up in 2017. This work, however, was never done, making the junction vulnerable to mishaps. In August last year, a section of the retaining wall of the flyover collapsed , causing the road below to cave in as well. Officials later found that the incident occurred due to the collapse of the sewer line below the flyover – the same line that is now being shifted. Similar cave-ins had occurred at the junction in August 2020 and 2019 as well. Despite the sewer line not being shifted, however, payment for the work had been released. Haryana Police’s criminal investigation department is already conducting a probe and a GMDA sub-divisional officer has been suspended. After the August collapse, civic agencies had decided to shift the sewer line from the right side of the service road to the left side. Work for this started in April 2022. “If this task had been done at the time of undertaking construction at the intersection, it would have been much easier. The plans for the intersection could have been made keeping in mind this shifting. However, since this was not done, the work has become much more complicated because we need to figure out a way of connecting the sewer line being shifted with the existing line,” said a senior GMDA official. NHAI official said, “We had been told that the work would be completed before the monsoon, but that did not happen. GMDA is supervising the work.”
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/gurgaon/gurugram-how-iffco-chowk-ride-turned-bumpy/articleshow/93991372.cms