‘New flyover may clear RTR mess’

NEW DELHI: In a bid to resolve the Rao Tula Ram flyover traffic mess, the PWD and traffic engineering consultants RITES have drawn up three conceptual proposals to present before the planning body, Unified Traffic and Transportation Infrastructure (Planning & Engineering Centre (UTTIPEC).

The plans include building an additional flyover on portals parallel to RTR and extending it till Munirka flyover, a new connectivity from Nelson Mandela Marg to NH-8, and construction of an underpass for traffic turning right from Benito Juarez Marg to Ring Road.

"A number of plans — only at conceptual level — are being worked out. We are focusing on resolving both localized traffic issues along with the larger traffic circulation problems in the area by offloading traffic from RTR. Only one point solution will not solve the mess along the corridor," said a senior public works department official.

Officials say that they are looking at ways to reduce the traffic load on RTR and shift it to the surrounding feeder roads. A recent study by RITES showed that Nelson Mandela Road is being severely under-utilized, and a proper connectivity from Nelson Mandela Road to NH-8 will ease the perennial jams on RTR. The consultants are working out a way to remove the bottleneck at the Nelson Mandela Marg-outer Ring Road junction and to improve the traffic movement at Baba Ganganath Marg-Munirka Marg junction. According to officials, a plan to construct a bypass from Mehrauli-Mahipalpur Road to NH-8 would also reduce the load on RTR.

Meanwhile, Benito Juarez Marg is another under-used road since there is no right turn available from this road to Ring Road, said officials. "An option to create an underpass on this road for a right turn is being explored as it would encourage more commuters to use Benito Juarez Marg," added the official. A plan to construct an additional three-lane flyover — parallel to the existing RTR flyover — is also being considered, which could be connected to Munirka flyover. This flyover, built on a portal structure, would allow vehicles to move at grade underneath it as well, and would be merged with the Munirka flyover.

"The feasibility of the plan has not yet been worked out and is just a suggestion. The idea was proposed as the problem of removal of the Malai Mandir rock could be avoided altogether. The flyover will be merged with the Munirka flyover, and people travelling from IIT towards the airport can thereby avoid the RTR jam by going via the elevated road," said the official.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

North Corporation bid to double property tax

NEW DELHI: Trifurcation of the municipality has come at a heavy price for north Delhi residents. In its first budget, the North Delhi Municipal Corporation has proposed doubling of property tax and parking charges to strengthen its dire financial position.

The proposals were rejected by the ruling BJP. But officials said a hike in taxes was necessary as the civic body owed the Delhi government Rs 790 crore. Commissioner P K Gupta has proposed 170% increase in base unit area rate - which will double the property tax.

"Post-trifurcation, we started with a deficit budget. To carry out development work, we need to increase our revenue. A tax hike, especially in property tax is important,'' said Gupta, while presenting the budget on Wednesday. As per the proposal, the corporation has increased parking rates on hourly basis. For the first hour, car owners will have to pay Rs 20 instead of Rs 10. For the next 5 hours, the rate has been hiked to Rs 50, and to Rs 75, for up to 12 hours.

The corporation has also proposed a special parking charge during peak hours, 5pm to 9pm, when car owners will have to shell out 50% more than the applicable rates.

On property tax, officials said raising revenue was a challenge as just 3.75 lakh property owners paid their taxes. There's no category 'A' colony in the municipal area.

Though the corporation aims at collecting Rs 350 crore as property tax this year, it has collected just Rs 190 crore so far. "We mainly have D and E category colonies. Moreover, the base unit area value has not been revised in the last eight years. The recommendations of the third municipal valuation committee have not been implemented too," said Gupta.

Similarly, officials say a hike in parking rates will help the corporation earn Rs 20-22 crore as revenue. Officials say that the hike in parking rates was based on recommendations of the Environment Pollution and Control Authority.

The proposed property tax hike is likely to boost the civic agency's revenues by Rs 200 crore, which is a substantial amount given the corporation's financial condition. Its income as per the revised budget estimate 2012-13 is Rs 3,712.09 crore as compared to the budget estimate of Rs 3,427.01 crore. The expenditure during 2012-13 financial year is 3,233.1 crore as compared to an estimate of Rs 3,397.7 crore.

For the next financial year (2013-14), the corporation has proposed an expenditure of Rs 3,590.84 crore and an income of 3,592.18 crore.

The budget estimate for next year is based on the assumption that the tax hikes will be approved. The budget includes expenses such as repaying the Rs 790 crore loan from Delhi government. Officials said if the tax hike is not approved, a lot of projects will not been able to see the light of day.

With assembly elections next year, the BJP was quick to reject the tax proposals. "There is going to be no hike in taxes. We are not going to burden the public like the Congress does. We will identify new sources of revenue,'' said Yogender Chandolia, chairman, standing committee.

While the corporation claims that it will not be able to take up new projects in case the tax hike is not approved, a look at the budget shows that the corporation doesn't have many new projects to boast about. Most projects mentioned in the budget for 2013-14 have figured in previous budgets as well. The budget stresses on its commitment to creating parking spaces. It claims it will add space for 1,978 cars by 2014. But this is likely to remain a promise as most of its parking projects are no way near completion. Even the projects which were inaugurated earlier this year - like the Parade Ground Parking project - are yet to be opened.

The corporation has proposed the redevelopment of Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar and its heritage property, the Town Hall. It also mentions the construction of a 250-bedded hospital and a medical college at Hindu Rao Hospital.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Rs 790cr loan repayment rests on property tax hike

NEW DELHI: For house owners in the area under North Delhi Municipal Corporation, it's grim news. The property tax they pay is likely to double if the budget proposals come through. The cash-strapped corporation has proposed a steep hike in property tax.

Presenting the budget on Wednesday, commissioner P K Gupta proposed a 170% hike in the base unit area value and 3-5 % increase in the rate of tax across all categories of colonies . Gupta stressed the need to improve the financial health of the corporation, which has to repay a loan of Rs 790 crore to Delhi government.

The civic agency proposes to increase the base unit area value across all categories of colonies by 1.7 times.

For example, a 100 sq metre residential property in Civil Lines which was constructed after 2000 pays Rs 6,000 as property tax. But if the new slabs are implemented, then the owner will have to pay almost double the amount - Rs 12,750 - as tax.

This hike would boost the civic agency's revenue by Rs 200 crore (approx). "Our tax collection is low as we don't have any A category colony and very few B category colonies . We mainly have D and E category colonies. Areas like Rohini are under E category,'' said Gupta.

With the BJP, which is the ruling party in all three municipal corporations, sitting over the third municipal valuation committee report for over two years and not allowing any tax increase during its tenure in the erstwhile MCD, officials say the corporation has suffered a lot.

"The cost index has gone up manifold but we have never increased the tax. In 2009, the rate of tax was increased marginally . Moreover, the base unit area value has not been revised since 2004 when the unit area method for calculation of property tax was implemented ,'' said a senior official.

Justifying the proposed hike, officials say, the tax calculated after the hike is much less than what people used to pay under the rateable value method, which was in existence before April 1, 2004.

Unlike last year, the corporation has clubbed all commercial properties like cinema halls, guest houses, paying guest accommodations, shopping complexes, lodges, inns etc that have a covered area of 150 sq metre and above under one category.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Carnegie Mellon University professors launch online business education courses for Indian students

NEW DELHI: The Academic Financial Trading Platform (AFTP), the first massively open online course (MOOC) platform dedicated exclusively to business education, launched its courses in November 2012 to a growing community of Indian MBA students and executives. Funded by PMC Group, AFTP was founded in 2011 by two Carnegie Mellon University professors, Raj Chakrabarti (systems engineering) and Anisha Ghosh (financial economics), with the aim of delivering an integrated curriculum of business courses to interested students anywhere in the world.

AFTP faculty include professors at several of the world's top business schools and economics departments, including Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), the London School of Economics (LSE), and the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. MOOCs have been taking the higher education industry by storm, offering university-level courses from the world's top schools online for free to anyone, anywhere, through video lectures and weekly assessments that allow students to learn at their own pace. In the wake of the global economic crisis, increasing unemployment rates, and the rising cost of education, AFTP aims to teach a class of skills that are wholly different from those taught on existing MOOC platforms like Coursera, edX or Udacity - namely, skills that facilitate business decision-making. Students who successfully complete the courses, which are comparable in difficulty to those taught by the same professors on campus, obtain formal certification of mastery in mainstream business subjects like investments, macroeconomics and corporate finance. But while the conventional B-school curriculum ends there, AFTP training continues, encompassing application of the acquired skills to real-world decisions. For example, students gain access to the latest and most cutting-edge stock market prediction techniques, trading strategies, and valuation methods developed at the world's top research centres.

As part of AFTP coursework, students use the website to backtest the performance of these techniques on decades of historical stock market data, and compare their performance to that of top investment houses in the US. And then, they learn how to apply these techniques - either to manage their own personal finances, or in the context of their jobs. According to Chakrabarti, who is an associate professor in CMU's College of Engineering and Centre for Advanced Process Decision Making, "MOOCs expected to transform distance learning by delivering education from the world's top academics to students in any geographic location - including developing countries like India. We see unique opportunities in India for online business and engineering education that are difficult to achieve in a conventional classroom lecture setting." According to a press statement, AFTP was developed by Chakrabarti, based on his expertise in the area of computational risk management, with the help of Ghosh's experience in the modelling of financial markets. Ghosh, who is the Frank A and Helen E Risch faculty development professor of business at CMU's Tepper Business School, began offering the first online course - investment analysis - to students around the world from November 2012. Professor Christian Julliard of LSE will teach AFTP's second course - macroeconomics - starting January, 2013. Indian students are welcome to enroll for a limited number of remaining spots.

Ghosh indicates that open access to cutting-edge business decision-making techniques - such as the latest stock market prediction algorithms - is one of the key aspects of AFTP that students are most excited about. "With the advent of online brokerages, an increasing number of individual investors participate in the stock market," she said. "However, most investors do not have access to the types of trading strategies used by top asset management firms, and hence are reluctant to take control of their own investment decisions. AFTP enables any investor to apply the latest trading strategies directly on any online brokerage, with no management fees," added Ghosh. Within the first month of their release, AFTP courses are already being taken by MBA students at the top business schools in India, including the IIMs and IITs, to supplement their on-campus learning. AFTP professors are interacting directly with Indian faculty to integrate the online courses with the on-campus curricula at these business schools. PMC Group - the global manufacturing conglomerate with branches spanning the US, Europe and India - is funding the development and distribution of the courses through its sister company PMC Advanced Technology, which is working closely with administrators at Indian business schools to oversee assessment and certification. Chakrabarti sees the AFTP model as a first step in the evolution of the Internet into a pervasive decision-making resource where open access to cutting-edge university research (as well as teaching) will play a pivotal role in guiding the decisions of individuals in matters that affect their lives the most. "At present, the Internet offer individuals access to raw information via Google Search, but does not indicate how to use that information to guide future decisions by combining state-of-the-art knowledge with available data and personal preferences," he said adding that, "To achieve this goal, education as well as research must be transmitted to the general public on a grand scale. MOOCs offer just that opportunity." Pending continued growth of AFTP, Chakrabarti and PMC plan to extend the platform to offer a curriculum of engineering courses as well as business courses.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Dr Path Labs asked to modify its report format for consumer convenience

NEW DELHI: Medical diagnosis by different pathlabs could yield different results creating confusion and angst for the patient. A district consumer forum has ordered one such pathological laboratory to highlight in bold their facility of a free second check that a customer can avail, in case of a highly variant result.

In an order by the Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum (district New Delhi), the Dr Path Labs Pvt Ltd. has been asked to modify their report format across all branches and highlight in bold this consumer related information.

"Holding the opposite party guilty of deficient and imperfect to this extent we direct the OP that it should modify the report format by printing important instructions in bold in front with the title "IMPORTANT INFORMATION" in a box," stated the order passed by President of the forum CK Chaturvedi.

The bench also asked the lab to "orally draw attention and explain meaning of the same to the patient who comes to get the test conducted." While passing the order the bench noted the present facility provided by the lab which is mentioned as an Overleaf Report instruction. However, the bench observed that printing such instructions "in small letters is deceptive practice and of no real utility."

The issue was brought to the notice of the commission by Rajesh Marwaha, who alleged highly variant results of test undertaken by him and his wife. While the court gave benefit of doubt to the test result of Marwaha's wife, a report that possibly indicated at dengue, it did consider the variant results of Marwaha's blood sugar.

However, referring to both the cases the bench expressed its consideration to the plight of patients coming for the test may be "illiterate", or "confused" and "disoriented" because of their illness and directed the lab to make the overleaf instruction conspicuous.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Participants mock exercise, drill a disaster

NEW DELHI: A terror attack, an earthquake, a bomb blast. The most calamitous situations had been planned out to test Delhi's disaster preparedness. But the execution of the mock drill on Tuesday was anything but perfect.

Delhi's Disaster Management Authority coordinated the drills under simulated situations like earthquakes, terror attacks, fire breakouts, flyover collapse etc-at 33 different locations between 11:45 am to 1:30 pm. The venues included Metro stations, schools, colleges, markets, temples, government buildings and five star hotels.

"The entire mock drill exercise remained incident free and all the emergency support functionaries participated in it buoyantly," said secretary, DDMA, Dharampal.

The event for which volunteers trained for over three months looked like a well-rehearsed exercise that saw ambulances and PCR vans doing rounds at some of the venues in anticipation much before the disaster call.

Interestingly, on certain venues inspite of all the rehearsals, ambulances were reported to have reached late and were not in enough numbers. "As per the initial trends in many places PCR vans had to do the job of ambulances as they failed to turn up at the spot in time. They were also short in number," said a senior DDMA officer.

The ambulance crunch was also highlighted in the final analysis of the last two mock-drills conducted by DDMA in February and July this year. Also, this particular drill aimed at checking the preparedness of the capital's "medical emergency services".

"This audit will largely be on health sector. After these results we shall be in a position to give exact details about the lapses on part of medical services which will be submitted to the health department soon," said the officer.

However, for the first time DDMA conducted a unique simulation exercise at Burari Urs ground that saw eight sub scenarios evolving from an earthquake causing widespread damage. The resulting sub scenarios were building collapse, chemical leak in a factory, road accident, school building collapse, fire in a government building, flyover collapse, cracks and fire in a mall, partial damage to a hospital. The authority had made dummy flyovers and buildings to enhance the impact.

"Based on the success of our drills, particularly the one held on February 15 this year, neighbouring states like Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh have called DDMA officials to train them as they want to copy our module and do a similar drill on February 15, 2013," said an officer.

The event saw observers from the Army, who made an independent audit of the entire exercise. Also since this exercise was meant to check medical emergencies independent doctors from AIIMS and other hospitals were deployed to do the resource mapping of the hospitals where the patients were rushed.

In the various scenarios that were enacted during the mock drill the disaster machinery dealt with the overall situation of 164 dead, 143 seriously injured, 497 major injuries and 461 minor ones. They were taken to various hospitals and admitted for treatment.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

New road to speed up South Delhi traffic to Faridabad

NEW DELHI: In what will be a major relief to south Delhi commuters bound for Gurgaon and Faridabad, Delhi government's public works department is undertaking construction of a four-lane road from Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road to Gurgaon-Faridabad road.

This 9km corridor is expected to help commuters from Mehrauli, Greater Kailash, Chhattarpur, Saket etc avoid jams on NH-8 and NH-2. The Rs 597-crore project will be funded by the urban development ministry, said officials.

Link road report likely soon

"The road, called Mandi Road, exists now as a two-lane road riddled with potholes and without a central verge. Widening this road to a four-lane double carriageway will help commuters bypass the more long-winding and congested routes currently available," said PWD minister Raj Kumar Chauhan.

The road will begin on MG Road, go through Gwala Pahari and end at the Gurgaon-Faridabad road, providing the shortest connect with Faridabad from south Delhi, said officials.

RITES is conducting a topographic survey and is expected to submit a report within a fortnight. It is simultaneously carrying out soil and material testing and a traffic survey. "After the topographic survey is conducted, the alignment will be fixed and land acquisition will be decided accordingly. There are many farmhouses along the route," said a senior PWD official.

The right of way (ROW) of the existing road varies from 12-20 metres. As per the master plan of Delhi, the proposed right of way of this road in 60 metres. "An estimate of Rs 597 crore was sent by PWD to DDA on August 29. Of this, land acquisition alone is expected to cost Rs 400 crore, while the rest will include civil, electric, horticulture, consultancy work etc," added the official.

The width of the carriageway on each side is proposed to be 7.5 metres, with an additional service lane of 4.5 metres on each side and a footpath and drain of 2.25 metres.

The financial estimate submitted by PWD has been checked by DDA and was discussed at a meeting of the project approval committee on September 4 at the urban development ministry.

"Since the estimate figure is tentative and likely to change based on the detailed project report (DPR) to be finalized by the consultant, the proposal was approved in principle and Rs 150 cr (around 80% of construction cost) approved for release from the ministry," said a source.

To avoid delays, financial bids were invited only from government organizations like CRRI and RITES and DIMTS and RITES were appointed as consultants on October 16. The consultants have been given two months to submit the land acquisition plan, two months to submit the draft DPR for phase I (within available ROW), one month to submit the final DPR for phase I and another four months to submit DPR for phase 2 (with 30 metres ROW).

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Four patients die in ICU of city trauma centre as oxygen fails

NEW DELHI: Hours before a mega drill began across the capital to check the city's preparedness for medical emergencies, four patients in the ICU of the state-run Sushruta Trauma Centre in north Delhi died because the oxygen supply suddenly stopped.

The trauma centre was established in 1998 to provide critical care to victims of serious accidents.

But what happened on Tuesday was critical failure due to sheer negligence. The alarm indicating oxygen supply shutdown went off at 6.40am but the supply could not be restored for 30 minutes — a delay that allegedly led to the death of four of the five patients in the ICU at that time.

The prolonged shutdown happened despite the administration being fully aware of the problem — since it had been recurring for the past few days. In a shocking admission, hospital medical superintendent, Dr Richa Dewan, said there was a single, untrained person to manage the oxygen supply in violation of the agreement between the hospital and supplier.

"We have outsourced the gas manifold system to a private contractor which is responsible for maintenance and supervision. As per the contract, there should be at least one technician and a helper but on Monday there was only one person who was not trained to manage oxygen supply," said Dr Dewan.

'Malfunction had been on for many days'

Dr Dewan revealed other glaring mistakes in the way oxygen was being supplied.

"The manifold system has two sets of oxygen units consisting of 11 and 10 cylinders. When one set is finished the other automatically resumes supply. But in this case, the technician was running one cylinder at a time which led to the malfunction," she said, adding that the hospital had registered a police case in the matter. The hospital pays close to Rs 1.5 lakh monthly to the private contractor managing the gas manifold system for maintenance and salary of the technical staff.

However, the city's medical community felt the hospital too had to take responsibility for the failure, since there was no back up arrangement for oxygen supply.

Dr M C Misra, chief of the AIIMS trauma centre, said deaths due to oxygen supply failure in an ICU setting was unheard of. "Usually there is enough back-up and even if that fails we have ambu-bags to give the patient oxygen support temporarily," said Misra.

"This is a complete failure of administration. One cannot get away by blaming the technician. Those responsible must be punished appropriately," said Dr Sushil Sharma, senior orthopedic surgeon at a private hospital.

"There were five patients in the ICU. Of these, Rihana, Javed, Rajkumari and an unidentified man (36 years old) brought by the police died within minutes of the oxygen supply being stopped.

Vikram, another head injury patient, was resuscitated by the attending nurse but his condition is still critical," said a source. He added that the ventilator alarm went off as the oxygen levels reduced. "I rushed to the ICU on hearing the sound and but the nurse did not let me inside. A few hours later I was informed about my mother's death," said Golu, the eldest son of Rajkumari.

According to sources, failure in oxygen supply at the trauma centre had been going on for several days. "At 3am on Tuesday, three hours before the incident took place, another surgery was interrupted due to lack of oxygen supply. We first called the technician and then an OT technician was rushed," said a doctor.

The families of victims kept protesting outside the hospital all day but they claimed not a single doctor came forward to explain matters. State health minister A K Walia said an FIR is being lodged against the technician who was operating the gas manifold system and a three-member committee headed by special secretary S B Sashank has been formed to investigate the matter. "The enquiry would look into the causes of the incident and would also suggest measures to avoid recurrence of such incidents," said Walia.

He added that the committee has been directed to submit its report within three days. On Wednesday, Walia has called medical superintendents of state-run hospitals for a review meeting.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Plans aplenty, but most sink without trace

NEW DELHI/NOIDA: It's not that the planners are blind to the need for more bridges on the Yamuna, but a number of proposals made in recent years remain stuck in procedures.

Take the heavily congested Kalindi Kunj Bridge, for instance. The Noida Authority proposed a parallel bridge two years ago but the project is still at the survey stage. Plans to build two bridges near the DND toll bridge and the GT Karnal Road are awaiting clearances at various levels. An east-west corridor proposed five years ago has been revised several times but its fate remains uncertain. Only one bridge - the Wazirabad Signature Bridge - is being built but has missed several deadlines .

The new Kalindi Kunj bridge that could have reduced dependence on the DND toll road has been kept on the back burner. The agreement between Noida Toll Bridge Company Limited, which built the DND Flyway, and Noida Authority disallowed construction of a competing facility for 10 years. After the agreement expired in February last year, Noida Authority gave the goahead for a parallel bridge by selecting a consultant and fixing a budget. The plan was to use DND for Delhi-bound traffic and the new bridge for traffic towards Noida. Although the ground work for the project has started, the approval for construction remains pending.

"An initial amount of Rs 8 lakh was sanctioned for carrying out a detailed survey and hydraulic model studies for the bridge at Central Water & Power Research Station, Pune. The firm was to also study the feasibility of the parallel bridge on the Yamuna," said an official from Noida. "Factors pertaining to soil, river flow, water pressure, pillar strength etc are to be tested by the company to ascertain the design of the pillars and the width of the bridge," the official said. "The CWPRS has raised certain objections and we are in the process of sorting them out. Plans for the bridge should be online within a few months," he said.

Although the plan has been pending for nearly two years, officials say they are not in a position to fix a date for the official launch of the project. "On the basis of the report received from CWPRS, a detailed project report will be prepared. After the technical design is approved and bids are invited, it should not take more than 18 months to complete the project," he added.

The Wazirabad Signature Bridge is another story of delays. First proposed in 1997, it was originally slated to be completed before the Commonwealth Games. The government now hopes to finish the work by December 2013.

Another project, called the east-west corridor, was conceived in 2007 and would have provided a high-speed link across the river. It is now planned as a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor. The project was to be ready ahead of the Commonwealth Games but was scrapped after the Delhi Urban Art Commission (DUAC) rejected it, citing a problem with the plan of an elevated corridor at Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg. The drawings have since been revised. About Rs 1 crore has been spent on the planning part, but there is no certainty of the corridor materializing as new objections have been raised regarding the route of the corridor .

Two other bridges proposed by the Public Works Department (PWD) are still awaiting clearance. While a bridge parallel to the DND Bridge has been proposed for the third phase of the Barapullah project, another will connect the Loni border Tpoint to GT Karnal Road. The latter is yet to get in-principle approval. Preliminary drawings have been submitted to UTTIPEC for clearance of the Barapullah plan while a study is being conducted for feasibility of a bridge near GT Karnal Road.

Pontoon quick fix

Officials of the Public Works Department (PWD), which builds pontoon bridges in Delhi, say such bridges are a feasible alternative. A pontoon bridge can be built quickly at a modest cost, usually around Rs 2 crore. While the bridge itself can be quickly assembled, it can take up to two months to build the approach roads. Offi cials say the tendering process is the biggest bottleneck

Pontoon bridges are usually built where the river is narrow, and offi cials say the points where pontoon bridges were built earlier can be restored

Pontoon bridges were made near Bhairon Road and the approach road ran parallel to the railway track up to the ITO chungi. However, construction of the Yamuna Bank Metro station has disturbed the approach road. But traces of the pontoon bridge approach road between the sites of Mayur Vihar-1 and Barapullah Bridge still exist, say officials.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Far between and few: Delhi's bridges

NEW DELHI: With only eight road bridges across the Yamuna in the capital, moving between different parts of the city and the suburbs of Noida and Faridabad is a test of patience. Despite massive development in the city's east and northeast in the last decade - resulting in a corresponding jump in population and vehicular traffic in these areas - only one new bridge was built across the Yamuna in the same period. Most of the bridges in Delhi are from the 1990s.

In the last decade, 38.5 lakh new vehicles were registered in Delhi. The eastern and northeastern parts have added more than seven lakh people, and account for almost a fifth of Delhi's total population. Major infrastructure projects across the Yamuna due to the Commonwealth Games, as well as development of the satellite towns of Noida, Ghaziabad and Faridabad have increased the number of vehicles crossing the Yamuna daily.

Yet, in the same period, only one new bridge - the Geeta Colony Bridge - has been built. The other bridges across the Yamuna include the Wazirabad Bridge, an iron bridge called Loha Pul, ISBT Bridge, Geeta Colony Bridge, ITO Bridge, Nizamuddin Bridge, Kalindi Kunj Bridge and the DND toll road. The average waiting time on these bridges is 15-30 minutes in peak hours, say traffic officials.

"Delhi definitely needs more crossovers on the Yamuna as there is huge traffic movement on the bridges every morning and evening. However, along with bridges, proper feeder roads need to be provided as, otherwise, the traffic situation would just get worse as people will be stuck on these bridges," said joint commissioner of police (traffic) Satyendra Garg.

The narrow Wazirabad Bridge was built in 1968 and is always congested as it has only two lanes without a central verge. With many commercial vehicles from UP and Haryana using it every day, traffic between northeast Delhi and other parts of the city moves at a crawl.

The 144 years old Loha Pul is the oldest bridge over the Yamuna in Delhi. Built in 1868, it is now only fit for non-motorized traffic and two-wheelers . Still, it remains clogged at any time of the day, say cops.

The condition of the ISBT Bridge, built in 1990, is slightly better. This eightlane bridge connects north and northeast Delhi and is mainly used by interstate buses. The average waiting time on it is 10-15 minutes in peak hours.

The ITO and Nizamuddin bridges are the most crowded with waiting time touching half an hour during peak hours. Both bridges were built in the 1970s and widened to eight lanes in 1998. Vehicles from east Delhi, south Delhi and Ghaziabad use this route, making it the busiest and causing a long traffic tail on Vikas Marg and NH-24 .

The Kalindi Kunj Bridge or Okhla Barrage is one of the worst bridges. Built in 1984, it has not seen major repairs in 28 years. It was built with a daily capacity of just 10,000 vehicles, but more than a lakh vehicles from Delhi, Faridabad and Noida use it every day now. Development of Noida led to the construction of the DND toll bridge in 2001. However , toll collection causes severe jams on this route during peak hours. The only bridge built recently is the Geeta Colony Bridge, completed in 2009. The six-lane bridge only has slow-moving traffic during peak hours, and has taken the load off the ITO Bridge, say traffic cops.

Delhi fares poorly compared with global cities like London and Paris in terms of bridges. While London has 34 bridges, Paris has 32 major bridges and several minor bridges. Rome has 31 major bridges while Bangkok, Budapest and Berlin have about a dozen bridges each.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More