Gurugram: Kherki toll may be shifted by early 2021, says GMDA
The Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) is yet to transfer the 50 acres of land in Pachgaon required for the shifting of Kherki Dhaula toll plaza to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) due to land acquisition issues, almost six months after the Punjab and Haryana high court vacated the stay on the land.
Though the high court had vacated the stay, the original landowners had filed a total of seven cases over compensation, which were to be resolved by a committee headed by Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) managing director Anurag Agarwal. While five of these cases have been resolved, two are pending.
“The landowners had raised issues over compensation. The committee had met some weeks ago and one of the cases was resolved. The other one is likely to be resolved soon, following which we’ll submit a report to the high court,” a senior GMDA official said.
Once the court approves the committee’s decision, GMDA can then transfer the land to NHAI, after which work for the shifting of toll can finally begin. GMDA officials said from the day they transfer the land to NHAI, the latter will take six months to shift the toll plaza.
“After the land is transferred, we’ll put a countdown board at the new site which will start with 180 days. It will be updated daily to show the days left out of the six months that the toll shifting will take. With the land transfer expected to be done in the next couple of months, we expect the toll to be shifted by early 2021,” said the official.
The shifting of the toll plaza has been in the pipeline for more than five years now. The high court had vacated the stay on the 50 acres of land in January this year, allowing the state government to take over the land in Pachgaon. The order, passed by a bench of justices Manjuri Nehru and Rajan Gupta, put an end to a dispute between HSIIDC and the landowners.
HSIIDC had earmarked around 38 acres of land for shifting the toll plaza to Sehrawan, but the plan was changed after environmentalists protested against the move, stating that the area was a wildlife corridor.