GURUGRAM: Everyday around 5,000 people from the Gurugram side drive all the way to Rajokri in Delhi to take a U-turn towards Ambience Mall and residential complexes behind it. For, a U-turn within Gurugram’s limits promised around six years ago is yet to take a shape.In fact, the original proposal has been revised and the new plan includes an underground U-turn near the mall for the city-bound traffic and an elevated U-turn near Shankar Chowk for Delhi-bound vehicles. Though most of initial stumbling blocks have apparently been removed, a goof-up by Huda over land has resulted in a fresh hurdle that may further delay the project.In-principal approval for the U-turn underpass and the elevated U-turn was given and a coordinated development plan was sanctioned in the beginning of 2012. However, the project to be developed in public-private partnership (PPP) hanged in the balance for around six years over issues related to funding. Under the PPP mode, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is expected to fund 50% of the project cost while Ambience Private Limited and DLF are to pay the remaining 50%.After much dilly-dallying, a detailed project report was prepared last year, pegging the project cost at Rs 163 crore, last year. Around six acres was acquired and tender was decided for the same. The award letter is likely to be handed over to the selected agency in November. The plan was to start construction within a month thereafter and complete the project in another 18 months. Ideally, the U-turn underpass and the elevated U-turn should have been ready by mid-2020.When everything seems to be in place, Huda committed a mistake. It returned around 1.22 acres acquired for the project to Hindustan Insecticides Limited (HIL), the original owner of the land. Now, the only way to get back that piece of land — it will hold the ramp of the elevated U-turn — is to re-start the entire acquisition process, which may take months or even longer.Actually, Huda had acquired a total of 4.8 acres to widen the Shankar Chowk service lanes in 2013. Then, HIL approached the Punjab and Haryana high court, and Huda promised to return the unused land to HIL.The urban authority probably didn’t realise that the remaining land would be required for the U-turn project, said a senior official.The goof-up came to light when NHAI consultantsnoticed construction of a boundary wall on the plot. Sources revealed that GMDA chief V Umashankar had sought the details of the land transfer.“We will start construction in a phased manner from the Ambience Mall side. So, we would be able to complete some work by the time we get the remaining land,” said Ashok Sharma, project director, NHAI.

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