Road to Qutub a bumpy ride

Monday, 12 July, 2010


The city government is busy making claims that Delhi will be ready to host the Commonwealth Games in October but access to the city's world heritage sites might be a challenge for the millions of visitors expected to arrive in Delhi for the sporting extravaganza. While the 17th century Red Fort still does not have a designated parking lot for visitors, the approach road to the Qutub Minar complex is in poor condition.

While the Qutub Minar is Delhi's most visited monument with footfalls of up to 10,000 visitors a day, the access road to the monument is not just broken in several places but also suffers from frequent spillage of water due to the presence of a water-filling facility in the vicinity. Traffic here is another problem and is especially dangerous for pedestrians who have to run across the road, after parking their cars, to the Qutub Minar entrance.

To ease traffic, a traffic circulation plan was prepared by INTACH which proposed that Gurgaon and Mehrauli-bound traffic be diverted away from the Qutub Minar, but the plan has not yet been implemented.

"We have written to several agencies about the problem since traffic is especially heavy around the Qutub. We proposed that only vehicles coming to the Qutub and Mehrauli areas use the main road while other traffic be diverted from Lado Sarai, bypassing the Qutub Minar. But since, at the moment, even Gurgaon-bound traffic passes by the Qutub, vehicular movement here is bad," said officials of the Archaeological Survey of India.

The other problem with the access road to the Qutub Minar is the poor condition of the road. "The stretch is in bad shape partly because of heavy vehicular movement, but mostly because of a water-filling centre by the side of the Qutub Minar. Water tanks park here for long hours to fill up their tanks which also leads to the frequent spillage of water on the road," said ASI officials.

The road-owning agency PWD also blamed the water-filling centre for the poor condition of the road."The only problem area on the stretch is where the DJB tanker office is located. A lot of water is spilled onto the road here. Otherwise, the road is in good condition. We just got micro-surfacing of the road, from Aurobindo Marg to Lado Sarai, done at a cost of Rs 50-60 lakh," said a senior PWD official.

Another world heritage site with problems is Red Fort where the parking lot for visitors — which will accommodate up to 300 vehicles and has been under construction for the last two years — is yet to be opened to the public. The delay with the parking lot means visitors to the Mughal citadel find access to the monument difficult due to Red Fort's location in Shahjahanabad.

Said ASI officials, "We will be calling for an expression of interest and then invite tenders from contractors to run the parking lot, which we will open before the Games at any cost. The parking lot has already been hit by several delays and we want to make it operational at the earliest."

Original news source http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Road-to-Qutub-a-bumpy-ride/articleshow/6157110.cms