The under-construction rail overbridge (ROB) in Chipiyana, on the Delhi-Meerut Expressway (DME), is likely to open by September 15, officials of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) said on Monday, adding that with the opening of the new ROB, the existing toll charges on DME’s Phase 2 (from UP Gate to Dasna) will increase as the authority is presently charging only 75% of the proposed rates on account of the ongoing construction work.
The ROB is the only major structure on the DME that is yet to be completed on the entire DME, which stretches across 59.77km, from Sarai Kale Khan in Delhi to Meerut via Ghaziabad. Once completed, it will significantly reduce traffic congestion and bottlenecks on the expressway, which have persisted since its opening on April 1, 2021.
“The concrete work has been completed for the ROB and 28 days later, on September 12, we will put the new structure to the load test to check its load bearing capacity. Thereafter, we will be ready to open the ROB to traffic on September 14 or 15,” said Puneet Khanna, manager (technical), NHAI.
The DME has four phases and three of them link Delhi with Meerut — from Sarai Kale Khan to UP Gate (9km), from UP Gate to Dasna (19km) and from Dasna to Meerut (a 32km dedicated greenfield expressway). The fourth spans from Dasna to Hapur on a different alignment without any expressway lanes and is also fully operational.
The ROB traverses the busy Delhi-Howrah railway section near the Crossings Republik township in Ghaziabad. It will have 16 lanes for bidirectional movement between Delhi and Ghaziabad and the NHAI has installed the truss, a steel structure weighing about 2,300 tonnes and 115 metres in length, to support the structure.
The NHAI officials said the ROB work was delayed and it overshot its December 2021 deadline owing to time taken to get clearances from the Railways and also on account of alterations to the ROB design itself.
However, commuters travelling from Sarai Kale Khan to Hapur will end up paying more toll once the ROB is fully operational. “The toll for travelling on the expressway lanes from Sarai Kale Khan to Meerut is ₹155 (one way), as per the NHAI notification, and this will remain unchanged. But, we are presently charging only ₹140 (one way) from Sarai Kale Khan to Chhajarsi in Hapur. The toll charges on this section will increase once the ROB is open. The increased rate calculation is in progress,” Khanna said.