Ashram chock-a-block as border stirs worsen traffic

The Ashram intersection, already the capital’s biggest traffic choke point, has been thrown completely haywire as the public works department has extended the barricades put up for the construction of a 750-metre underpass connecting it with the Nizamuddin railway bridge on to Mathura Road towards India Gate.

As other Delhi-Noida border points are closed in view of the farmers’ protest, the volume of vehicles using the Ashram route to reach UP via the DND flyway and Kalindi Kunj has increased significantly, leading to a complete breakdown of traffic management at the critical intersection.

A Hindustan Times spot check on Thursday showed vehicles stuck in long traffic jams even during non-peak hours. Before the lockdown, the intersection used to handle nearly 300,000 vehicles during peak hours. The figure is now down to 250,000 but the PWD extension of the barricades carried out last week has left commuters with barely half-a-lane of motorable space, which proves woefully inadequate.

“Along with the (Covid-19) pandemic, there has been a shortage of labourers, which has affected some of the work but on the other hand the Delhi government is completely prepared to deal with the situation and is trying its best to meet all the necessary timelines,” Delhi PWD minister Satyendar Jain said about the delay in the underpass project.

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Traffic and road design experts said the only solution to clearing the congestion on the stretch was to dedicate more resources and manpower to complete the project before the set deadline of March. The underpass had to be completed in December 2020. More efficient site management is required to streamline traffic, they said.

S Velmurugan, chief scientist, traffic engineering and safety division, Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), said, “Things have been slow because of unforeseeable events this year but authorities should have made arrangements such as additional manpower at least towards the end of the year to make up for the time loss so that the traffic chaos could be avoided.”

Another expert, Sewa Ram, professor of transport planning at the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), said technology for construction has advanced immensely over the last few years, which means that construction sites can be managed more efficiently to cause minimal disruption.

With the new arrangement, commuters going from New Friends Colony side towards east Delhi via Ring Road have to make their way around the roundabout of barricades, which leads to vehicles from all sides getting gridlocked at the intersection.

Rishi Ranjan, a regular commuter on the stretch, said over the past week the situation had become worse than ever.

“There are alternative routes to reach Noida but those are either shut off or have restrictions. There is no option but to use the Ashram intersection. I did not think traffic could get any worse when the work was limited to the NFC side of Mathura Road, but I was wrong, this extension is a nightmare for commuters,” Ranjan said.

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Sudheer Trehan, another commuter, waiting at the traffic signal on Mathura Road to take the left turn towards Lajpat Nagar, said even during peak hours there weren’t enough police personnel to manage traffic.

“Come here in the evening and you will find this place to be an absolute mess. Vehicles are literally standing in their spot for 15-20 minutes. Can you imagine any other road in Delhi where a driver would have the time to sit in his car and talk to you? But here I am because I know I am going to be here for another few minutes at least,” Trehan said.

Other issues afflict the area too. The carriageway on Mathura Road towards Sarita Vihar from Ashram, after taking a left turn near CSIR Apartments is being used for repairing a drain pipe damaged during construction work. A little further, construction material and debris are piled onto the divider — spilling over to the road — creating another bottleneck.

A senior PWD official, who wished not to be named, said over 50% work on the underpass had been completed and they hoped to finish the remaining by March.

“Construction work on the ramps of the underpass has almost been completed. Now we have started the digging process underneath the Ring Road portion at the intersection. This process is likely to take one-two months to complete,” he said.

After being cleared in 2016, work on the Ashram underpass was delayed for want of financial approval. On December 24, 2019, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal laid the foundation stone of the project with a deadline to complete it by December 2020, which has been extended.

PWD officials said construction moved slowly initially due to the protest at Shaheen Bagh and later stopped due to the lockdown. Even though work resumed towards the end of May, progress remained slow because of labour shortage and then due to pollution-related restrictions.

Traffic police officials said they had installed a temporary traffic signal for vehicles coming from the Lajpat Nagar side on to Ring Road so that they do not come on to the intersection all at once.

“We are working with the PWD to manage traffic in a way that does not affect commuters. The restrictions at the borders because of the farmers’ protest were not something that we could foresee while granting permissions,” a senior traffic official said on the condition of anonymity.

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