The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation is to start work at Dhaula Kuan, one of the busiest traffic intersections in the Capital, for the New Delhi Railway Station-airport Metro line.

Work on this stretch is going to last six months but the traffic police and DMRC have promised it is going be smooth sailing. “Since it is one of the highest density traffic corridors in the city, with several flyovers criss-crossing over it, we had to carry out a detailed study for nearly a year before coming up with a feasible solution for construction in this area,” Anuj Dayal, DMRC spokesperson, said.

Dhaula Kuan has earned the notoriety of being an accident-prone area.

The space between pillars has been doubled so that they don’t eat into the road space. To make this possible, the DMRC is using the in-situ construction method instead of segmental construction used for the other stretches. In segmental construction, pre-fabricated slabs were fixed using a launcher. The launcher requires a huge amount of space, so the DMRC decided to do away with it for this stretch. Instead, the slabs will be constructed on the site itself and will be much longer. Higher grade concrete is also being used to facilitate construction here.

Despite these measures, motorists in the area will still have to put up with lesser road space. “Seven pillars will come up on this stretch and four of these will be on the road median. The pillars will be much thinner than the ones used on other stretches,” Dayal said.

Two pillars will be constructed in the middle of the road. Both are on the road going towards Gurgaon, on either side of the median. The DMRC has also requested the Delhi Police to give space from their Dhaula Kuan police post for the widening of the road, so that road space used up by the pillar is made up for.

On the Ring Road arm going towards Naraina, the DMRC has planned one pillar on the median and another just next to it on the side of the road. “In this particular case, we have told them to not begin construction on the pillars simultaneously. That would leave very little road space and create a bottleneck,” Rupinder Kumar, DCP (Traffic) South, said.