Officials announced on Thursday that the Urban Extension Road-II (UER-II)—a grand infrastructure project envisioned as Delhi’s “third Ring Road”, with a target to enhance connectivity across north, northwest, west, southwest, and outer Delhi—is on track to be fully operational by December, when it will be opened to the public.
Lieutenant governor (LG) Vinai Kumar Saxena reviewed the project during an inspection of the entire 75.7-kilometre stretch on Wednesday.
The six-lane road, costing ₹3,600 crore, spans Delhi and Haryana, with 54.2km within the Capital. Funded by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and executed by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), UER-II is expected to significantly ease traffic and improve connectivity in several critical areas of the city.
“DDA’s ambitious UER-II Project, being constructed at a cost of ₹3,600 crore provided by the authority, is set to fully become operational by December this year. Stressing the need for seamless coordination since there are multiple departments and agencies involved, Saxena directed that the remaining portion of the project be completed at the earliest,” an official from the LG secretariat said.
The official said that the LG discussed the existing bottlenecks and the way ahead for all concerned agencies, while also making suggestions about not adding pillars to avoid obstruction to drain projects in the future.
“When informed of the ongoing works of construction of overhead road over the Mangeshpur drain, the LG instructed that no pillar supporting the road should be constructed in the Right of Way (ROW) of the drain. Drawing from his recent experience with drains in Delhi, especially the Barapullah and Kushak Nallahs, Saxena informed that construction of pillars in these drains had substantially blocked their flow, in the process causing over flooding during heavy rains. He accordingly instructed that any future exercise in the city, this factor should be taken into consideration,” said officials.
Officials added that UER-II was conceptualised by DDA as the third Ring Road for Delhi, which later took a larger shape with five packages. Of these, packages 1, 2 and 3 are in Delhi, while the remaining are in Haryana.
The project, which connects NH-44 (Delhi-Chandigarh highway) to NH-48 in south Delhi through the stretch between Bawana, Narela-Kanjhawala, Mundka and Dwarka in Delhi, has a spur in northwest going to Sonepat and Jind, a spur from Najafgarh going to Bahadurgarh and also connects with the Dwarka Expressway from Gurugram in Haryana.
“It further connects to the Eastern and Western Peripheral Expressways aimed at providing lasting solution to traffic congestion, easy transit and pollution control in Delhi, Haryana as well as Uttar Pradesh. Once fully completed, apart from easing traffic on the existing Inner and Outer Ring Roads in the city, UER will dramatically improve commuting in outer, west and southwest Delhi, apart from providing direct connectivity between Sonipat and Gurugram in Haryana,” said the official.
During the inspection, Saxena was accompanied by the Delhi chief secretary and senior officers of DDA, NHAI, MCD, PWD, I&FC department and Delhi Cantonment Board, officials from the LG secretariat said.
The LG had earlier this year approved the acquisition of a patch of land for this project that was pending since 2016. On February 7 this year, DDA in its budget, said that the authority plans to complete the construction of UER-II in the next fiscal and the allocation for it has increased from ₹920 crore to ₹1,590 crore. The project, which is a part of three UERs proposed in the Master Plan of Delhi 2021, was to be completed in 2020 but has faced delays.
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