A day before the opening, the Rao Tula Ram Marg-Palam flyover was still getting final touches, but the builders — DS Constructions — is still waiting for a final clearance from the National Highway Authority and independent consultants RITES.

That aside, there’s the confusion over when tolling would begin. A DS Constructions official, though, brushed the issue aside: “The work is complete and in place from our side. We only need the green signal from the ministry and RITES to begin tolling.”

Though the expressway builders have sold over 23,000 registration forms for toll passes, tolling will not begin immediately. For now, it would be free for all. Literally. Even two-wheelers are allowed on the dream stretch till tolling begins. After that, two-wheelers would be allowed use of only service lanes.

A final straw in this afternoon’s mega-opening could be the sudden objection from an unlikely quarter. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and its allied fronts have decided to do all they can to prevent Baalu — “the enemy of Ram Sethu” — from inaugurating the expressway. “We held a meeting on January 21 and decided to take on the union minister for trying to damage Ram Sethu,” said Vinod Bansal, VHP’s state media head of the Rameshwaram Ram Setu Rakhsha Manch. The Manch is the umbrella organisation under which “we decided to bar Baalu from inaugurating any ‘sethu’ (flyover) unless he backs off from Ram Sethu.”

Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and her Haryana counterpart, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, will attend the event.