Travelling to Delhi, Gurgaon or Dwarka on NH 48? Brace for traffic diversions

What’s open, what’s closed

A traffic police officer explained that several projects are simultaneously being undertaken on the expressway: Metro construction on the Mehrauli-Mahipalpur road and multiple tunnel or road constructions on routes from Dwarka to Airport; Dwarka to NH 48; Dwarka to Gurgaon and vice versa; Gurgaon to Airport and vice versa; and Bijwasan to NH 48.

In February, the National Highways Authority of India asked the Delhi Traffic Police to prepare a new set of entry and exit routes from the NH 48 and implement them under a three-phase project, till multiple projects near the highway are completed. The new routes are part of the same project.

Officers said with these measures, three major choke points on the expressway — near Mahipalpur Chowk, Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel roundabout, and Telco T-point — will be eased.

Here are the routes to take:

– Entry to NH 48 via Shankar Vihar has been stopped and diverted to the parallel service road.

–  Similarly, entry to NH 48 from a cut near Hotel Lohias has also been shifted 200 metres to the service road.

– Two new exits have been created, opening just before Shiv Murti and the Bureau of Police Research and Development office in Mahipalpur, to give commuters early exits from the expressway to decongest the road ahead, a senior traffic police officer said.

– However, the most critical shift has been at the Telco T point. Located near the Radisson hotel, it serves as a major entry point to the NH 48.

“The Telco T-point, from where commuters going to Gurgaon from IGI airport, Vasant Kunj, Mehrauli, and Dwarka enter the NH 48 using the bypass road, is being closed completely. It sees the maximum amount of congestion, which has increased due to heavy construction work. Traffic from all four lanes at the start of NH 48 accumulates here. Commuters would now need to take the service road parallel to the Telco T-point,” a senior traffic police officer said.

The Telco T-point is just ahead of the hotel, located on the service lane parallel to the NH 48.

On the left side of the T-point is Rangpuri village, from where commuters also enter the NH 48. “We have now diverted traffic coming towards Telco T-point to Shiv Murti via the service lane. We have barricaded the entry from Telco to the expressway,” the traffic police officer said.

The old routes will reopen, probably, by the first week of June, once the under-construction tunnels are operational, said officials.

“Tunnels between Dwarka and the IGI airport and Dwarka to NH 48 will likely start functioning in June. A lot of traffic that comes from the airport onto the expressway to go to Dwarka would be diverted via the tunnel. Once the other tunnels open later in the year, the old routes would start operating again,” a traffic police officer said.