DLF & HUDA to build 16-lane corridor to ease Gurgaon traffic woes

A 16-lane dedicated corridor in Gurgaon will link DLF’s Gateway Tower in Cyber City to the Golf Course Road, offering some relief from crumbling infrastructure in Delhi’s suburb.

Realty major DLF, which has a majority of its assets in Gurgaon, will build this 8.3 km-long road in a joint venture with the Haryana Urban Development Authority.

The two are expected to spend Rs 400-600 crore on the project that will include eight underpasses and a long flyover enabling commuters to reach the Golf Course Road from the Gurgaon toll plaza within seven minutes. This stretch usually takes 30 minutes.

Nearly 1.5 million residents and commuters from outside of Gurgaon who work in the city’s numerous corporate offices have been complaining of nightmarish infrastructure for years.

The city’s main office district Cyber City has been a both traffic and parking nightmare for people who work for companies such as Microsoft, Coca-Cola, American Express, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Pepsi, Dell, Nokia and Google.

“The objective is to provide optimum solution for traffic movements in the area based on present and projected traffic demand in future. This will be a signal-free movement from the toll gate to sector 55/56 and underpasses have been conceived considering urban environment to make it environment friendly,” says Rajeev Talwar, executive director at DLF.

DLF has high stakes in the development of infrastructure in Gurgaon. To ease congestion and to aid people who work in the Cyber City area where DLF has office buildings, the company had initiated India’s first private rapid metro rail project to connect the Delhi metro to the office district here. This will be operational by mid-2013.

“It will become more attractive for corporate tenants and DLF will be able to charge a premium on rentals and home prices as access would have become better,” says Anuj Puri, managing director of property consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle India.

With improved access and infrastructure, DLF will be able to charge at least 5% more rentals. Gurgaon’s urbanisation started with DLF building residential colonies in the 1980s, but the city – which grew into a hub of multinational companies, including outsourcing firms, after the economy was opened up a decade later – didn’t build enough infrastructure to cope with the demand.

The new road project will be fully integrated with the alignment of the rapid Metro. It will also develop six-lane carriageways on both sides of NH-8 from the toll plaza to the DLF Square building to streamline traffic and feed into the 16-lane road.

DLF has hired global design and planning firm AECOM to undertake a study on traffic, infrastructure and urban planning improvements for Gurgaon, based on which the final design plan has been prepared.

The process of bidding for the project is on and construction companies such as Lanco, L&T and Punj Lloyd have shown interest in the project that is expected to be operational in the next 36 months.

Gurgaon, also known as the millennium city, has attracted big multinational and IT companies to set up offices here because of its quality office buildings and proximity to the airport. With offices, came residential projects, but infrastructure has remained woefully inadequate.