Gurugram: The city section of the 27.6km-long Dwarka Expressway will soon be opened for traffic. Union Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari has directed officials of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to open the city section of the expressway . The 18.7km stretch of the expressway in Gurugram is expected to open in next two weeks, providing great relief to commuters between Delhi and Gurugram.

Meanwhile, the Delhi portion of the fast corridor is expected to be completed by mid-2024.

The Gurugram section of the eight-lane expressway will cut the travel time of commuters and also benefit the new sector’s residents travelling to NH-8 and other parts of the city, by offering them easy and quick connectivity. The expressway portion in the city was completed last year but it was not opened to traffic due to a pending safety audit as cited by the NHAI. The eight-lane expressway connects Shiv Murti Chowk in Delhi to Kherki Daula in Gurugram.

However, the commuters – residing in Gurugram sectors along the expressway – have been demanding to open the eway for them. According to NHAI, the safety inspection on the expressway is underway. The opening of the expressway in the city has been postponed several times in the past one year.

The Gurugram leg of the expressway was initially likely to open in June 2023 but it was delayed to August before being postponed to the end of 2023, and so on. The earlier postponement of the project opening had irked the residents of new sectors, which houses dozens of large housing societies as the area lacks public transportation facilities and cabs are difficult to come by.

The Gurugram stretch of the highway includes the cloverleaf interchange that will connect the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway (NH-48), and the Southern Peripheral Road (SPR) near Kherki Daula.