Ghaziabad: Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has reopened the NH-9 slip road connecting to CISF Road, providing relief to commuters travelling from Noida Sector 62 to Indirapuram. The stretch had remained closed for over a month due to metro construction work, forcing commuters to travel at least 4 km more before taking the internal roads in Indirapuram to reach CISF Road.“For the past month, crossing over to NH9/DME from Noida Sector 62 to Indirapuram had become a real problem because of metro work. It was time-consuming and the extra 4 km were also burning a hole in my pocket,” said a daily commuter and IT professional, Praveen Shekhar. “Auto-rickshaws, which in any way charge according to their fancy, had doubled their rate. I’m relieved that now I can take the CISF Road directly by crossing the NH9 underpass.”As part of the construction of the train reversal facility for the Line-3 extension between Noida City Center and Noida Electronic City stations, DMRC is constructing a metro pillar on the Indirapuram side.To facilitate this, the service road near Pier P386 towards Ghaziabad (close to Sector 62, Noida) remained out of bounds for traffic as a diversion was put into place. A DMRC official said, “The closure was essential for casting foundations of temporary support structures and placing trestles required for launching a 58.216-metre steel girder. The work in the overhead bridge is complete. We had closed off the stretch keeping the safety of commuters in mind.”The construction of the metro bridge is a part of the 5.1 km Noida Electronic City to Sahibabad. The spot where the new metro pillar is coming up is along the said alignment and in future whenever the work on the project starts, it will be a head start for the extension projects. The Noida Electronic City to Sahibabad metro project is facing delay due to funding issues.GDA on its part has already instructed DMRC to come up with fresh DPR of three metro projects in the city, which includes Noida Electronic City Sector 62 to Sahibabad, Shaheed Sthal New Bus Adda to Ghaziabad and Vaishali on Blue Line route to Gokulpuri in Delhi.
