Dwarka Expressway: Cost of Bad planning

This weekend one of my old friend visited me and as it happens, discussion invariably wandered into politics. I was shocked to hear him saying that previous UPA Govt was similar to present NDA Govt in terms of getting works done. For a political junkie like me this statement shocked me like anything. It also reminded me how short public memory is. So I thought it's on me to remind my fellow Indians about what Sonia Gandhi led Congress did to India. In first of this series (hopefully) of articles, I would like to pick up one of monumental failures (usage of failure is actually a eulogy because most of the actions are far more than just failures, I am going to write about were actually deliberate act of fraud and corruption but I don’t have any proof and due to incompetence of our legal system we will always remain without proof).

First of them I would like to tell the story of an Expressway which was planned to decongest one of India’s Busiest Highway. It was supposed to be a 8 lane on signal road connecting a upscale modern new city which had offices of about 80% of fortune 500 companies and The seat of Govt of India. I guess it’s clear now that I am talking about Dwarka expressway. It was planned in 2006 and was supposed to be completed before Commonwealth Games. (Yes, the same Commonwealth Games which can be topic of a 1000 page book on corruption). Along with highway, they planned an entirely new city along the highway with all modern facilities like Hospitals, Shopping Malls, Schools etc. It appeared meticulous planning except it wasn’t. It was gargantuan inaptitude in town planning that resulted in a highway which looks like this in 2018 on Google Maps

Currently, Highway starts near NH8, near Toll Plaza and runs parallel to NH8 few km North of the highway until it vanishes in homes and buildings in New Palam Vihar and reemerges just 200 meters away as if vehicles will go airborne at point A and land at point B and continue with their journey. Road again does in vanishing act once more about 2 KM west of Palam Vihar, this time on Delhi Gurgaon Border just that this time it does not reappear


And this is not a land issue as Palam Vihar patch is, This portion was never planned. Town-planners just planned this road without any connection on Delhi side. They didn’t even bothered extending their plans inside Delhi and now this road just sees an abrupt end at Haryana Delhi border. This abrupt end, probably makes this expressway as world’s widest, best made and most expensive single outlet road. Actually not a single outlet road but a no outlet road actually because on the other end as well, planning left few hundred feet before joining with Delhi Jaipur Highway (NH8), as if traffic (~ 2 Lakh cars per day) will take village roads from NH8 to come on this expressway

They did not plan a junction or even a traffic signal on its junction with NH8. Though we know what happens when NH8 have a traffic signal in Gurgaon.

I think after reading this most of you would be convinced that this was bad planning but so what? India have had more than its share of bad planning in past few decades. This case is special because of cost it imposed on average middle class. As I stated earlier, Dwarka Expressway was not just a road, Govt promised a complete township along with it. The dream was sold as New Gurgaon, A world class city with modern infrastructure which would have been very well connected to one India’s biggest airports, A business center which probably have highest concentration of fortune 500 companies in India (means a lot of jobs) and an upcoming diplomatic enclave (still upcoming since 2008), an Interstate modern class Bus Stand in Dwarka (Again still upcoming since 2008) and what not. This is a map shows a subset of residential projects that were launched in this area on promise of Dwarka Expressway.

Now almost all are stuck or useless because of lack of connectivity.

This was a dream which more than 2 lakh middle class families including your truly bought. And this dream was not cheap. Average 2000 Square ft flat was selling for ₹80 Lakhs (₹8 Million) in 2010. And this was before RERA, when 2000 SFt actually meant 1300 SFt. which is not a huge home for a 4 member family. So a ballpark calculation assuming average unit price of 50 Lakh for 2 Lakh flats comes to be around 1 Lakh Crore. Almost on par with 2G scam which was presumptive loss but this is real loss to a) Middle Class (as they paid for flats they never got back, b) Construction workers and Contractors as they were not paid for their work, c) banks in form of NPAs and overall real estate industry as many builders went bankrupt and overall trust in industry dropped significantly (not that it was better earlier).

And this is not not all. There are other hidden costs of this bad planning and incompetence of UPA Govt of India and Haryana. I am listing few of them

1. Noncompletion of this road means there is only 1 exit on south west side of Delhi. As below map shows that there are many exit roads on East side of Delhi to go to different cities of UP, On western side there are only 2 exits: 1. Rohtak Road connecting Rohtak, Hisar, Sirsa and ending at Fazilka border in Punjab and 2. Jaipur Road connecting Jaipur, Ajmer, Udaipur, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat and Mumbai. And it is also clear that this particular road deals with very heavy traffic from many nearby cities like Rewari and Alwar with vehicles having no alternative route to enter Delhi. If you are ever stuck in traffic jam on Delhi Gurgaon expressway, one of the reasons is there being no alternate route between Iffco Chowk and Rajiv Chowk in Gurgaon. This puts an extraordinary amount of pressure on NH8 and Dwarka Expressway would have eased a lot of burden from this road had it been completed. It would have provided an alternate route to vehicles in case of traffic jam like this

2. Again no other major road in Gurgaon means, Gurgaon is an elongated city which puts extra pressure on NH8 and make unnecessary long travel distances and by extension travel time in the city of Gurgaon. Off course this have implications for pollutions and what not.

3. A lot of new home inventory in last 10 years in Gurgaon was supposed to come along this route but that never happened and it created a demand supply gap in availability of homes in Gurgaon, hence rentals and home prices soared which most of Gurgaon residents are paying in form of everything being so expansive there.

While this is beyond argument that this problem was created by UPA Govt, question is what is 4 year old BJP Govt. is doing about it in Haryana and Center. Unfortunately nothing. Actually they are trying but there are so many issues, legacy plan created, it’s too difficult now to sort them out. Though I have found that will to sort this out quickly lacking in present Govt. but to their credit, they have resolved most (and believe me there were 100’s if not more) of the issues in terms of planning and land acquisition. They are now claiming they that this expressway will open in next 18 months. Though I am low on hopes but track record (They completed, well almost, 6 laing of Delhi Jaipur Highway, KMP and KGP expressway which were stuck from a decade) of this Govt. gives me some hope that this road will be used some day. But I am not sure if it will help me because, builder, who was building the under construction apartment, I own have tried to fled and have gone bankrupt with no chance of them completing the project.

Though this is only one of the reasons, this is more than enough for me to decide that I will not want to see Congress again handling crucial job of Governance in India. They just do not deserve that. Hopefully, some of the readers will remember days when we used to hear about a new scam every day on the voting day and not vote Congress even for lack of a choice.