Don't award contract for RTR flyover till Oct 10: HC to PWD

The Delhi High Court today asked the Public Works Department (PWD) to not award, till October 10, the contract for the proposed three-lane flyover to come up parallel to the existing one at Rao Tula Ram (RTR) Marg on the Outer Ring Road here.
A bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Siddharth Mridul said in its oral directions that the contract be not awarded till the next date of hearing on October 10 and also sought requisite maps and a scaled model of the proposed project be placed before it to better understand the matter.
"You are not going to award the contract till the next date," the bench said.

The court issued the direction after observing that earlier a mistake was made with respect to the current RTR flyover and it should not be repeated.
It was hearing a plea by various associations representing the residents of Vasant Vihar who have opposed the PWD's decision to build a three-lane flyover parallel to the one already there at an estimated cost of Rs 211 crore.
The associations have sought that a six-lane flyover be built in the same location by demolishing the existing one, while the PWD plans to build a three-lane elevated road from Munirka to Signals Enclave here which will also run parallel to the RTR flyover.

The associations also said while they are not interested in stopping the project, "we do not want the earlier mistakes to be repeated".

The PWD, while admitting to having made a mistake in making only a three-lane flyover at RTR Marg in 2009, said that it had "succumbed to the pressure of some influential people" of the area who were not willing to part with the side-lanes of their colony in order to widen the main Outer Ring Road at that location.
"So our flyover had to be cut by half," the PWD submitted before the court.
During the proceedings, the associations, represented by advocate Rajeshwar Rao, also contended that the PWD has the "consistent habit" of stopping flyovers just before a traffic signal so that a contract can be awarded for another flyover at a later stage.