Supreme Court: The Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta, JJ directed the National Highways Authority Of India (NHAI) to ensure that the newly constructed Eastern Expressway, which is aimed at decongesting Delhi, is thrown open to public from June 1 even if the Prime Minister cannot inaugurate it by then/ The Bench said that “any delay will not be in interest of people.”
NHAI had told the Court that the expressway was scheduled to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 29 but it could not be done due to his prior commitments. The Bench took exception to the 135-km Expressway, which envisages signal-free connectivity between Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Gautam Budh Nagar (Greater Noida) and Palwal, not being thrown open to the public despite being informed earlier that it would be inaugurated by April 20.
The Eastern and Western Peripheral Expressways were planned in 2006 following Supreme Court’s order to build a ring road outside the national capital for channelling non-Delhi bound traffic. The Supreme Court had asked the Centre in 2005 to build a peripheral expressway around Delhi by July 2016 to decongest and “de-pollute” the national capital.
Source: PTI
