NEW DELHI: In the near future, you may be able to breeze through Ashram Chowk while driving towards Noida or the upcoming traffic hub of Sarai Kale Khan on Ring Road. The painful bottleneck after the Ashram flyover is set to disappear with Delhi government’s expenditure and finance committee (EFC) on Friday approving extension of the existing flyover right up to DND Flyway with a loop for the traffic going towards Sarai Kale Khan.If a planned underpass on Mathura Road — below the Metro station — for traffic to move without any interruption from the Nizamuddin side towards Badarpur is also fast-tracked, the terrible jams at the Ashram intersection will be only a distant memory in a few years.The EFC, chaired by deputy chief minister and finance minister Manish Sisodia on Friday, cleared the extension which will make your drive to Noida much faster by reducing your travel time by at least 15 minutes. The overall traffic pressure on this stretch of Ring Road is also expected to reduce, said officials, with the ripple effect of long jams dissipating.The road below the flyover will then cater to the traffic coming out of colonies like Maharani Bagh, Jamia Nagar, Sunlight Colony and Bhogal on both sides.“This project is very important for traffic. It will be completed within 15 months (of work starting),” said Sisodia after the meeting. The four-lane Ashram flyover is a major artery connecting south Delhi to its eastern part and Noida and also providing a major gateway through the Barapullah elevated road towards INA, AIIMS and further south.This stretch daily handles around 6 lakh to 7 lakh vehicles, including heavy vehicles transporting goods from Noida to south Delhi and vice-versa, remaining choked all seven days of the week and during peak hours on weekdays. Any small disruption — like what was caused by the construction of the Metro station at the intersection and also the work for repairing the Lajpat Nagar flyover — only aggravates the situation. With traffic congestion easing here, the Lajpat Nagar flyover is also going to breathe easy.But before the traffic becomes smooth, commuters will have to brace for more congestion which is likely to be witnessed when the work for extending the flyover begins. By then, however, a new bridge over the Yamuna near Kalindi Kunj would have opened besides the road over the Okhla barrage providing another alternative route to reach Noida.

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