Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Pon Radhakrishnan has informed the Lok Sabha that to decongest traffic in Delhi, a ‘Peripheral’ Expressway in two parts was under implementation. The details of the Peripheral Expressway as stated by Radhakrishnan in his written reply: (i) Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE): It starts near Kundli in Haryana; passes through Baghpat, Gautam Budh Nagar and Ghaziabad districts of Uttar Pradesh and ends at Palwal in Haryana. The length of the EPE is about 135 km and the implementing agency is the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). At present, the physical progress is around 15 per cent. The awarded cost of civil works is Rs 4,418 crore and the scheduled date of completion is March 2018. (ii) Western Peripheral Expressway (WPE): It starts near Kundli in Haryana; passes through Bahadurgarh, Manesar and ends at Palwal in Haryana. The length of the WPE is about 135 km. This is a Government of Haryana project. Earlier, the project was awarded by Haryana in a single package on a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) mode. Subsequently, the work was terminated and balance work has been awarded in two packages — the Kundli-Manesar and Manesar-Palwal sections. The aggregate awarded cost of civil works is Rs 2,265 crore. Work on the Manesar-Palwal section of the WPE was completed in March 2016, and the scheduled date of completion for the Kundli-Manesar section is August 2018.
