The Roads & Buildings department is burning midnight oil effecting significant changes to the Secretariat junction and the traffic flow thereof, a day or two before the grand launch of the newly built state Secretariat complex.
The traffic police have shut down the straight road from NTR Marg to Adarsh Nagar, and cordoned off the other side of the road, to facilitate the works by R&B. Heavy machinery including excavators, and cement mixers have been deployed to carry out the works, under round-the-clock supervision of engineering officials.
Changes being made to the junction might have significant impact on the traffic proceeding from the Secretariat side to the Adarsh Nagar and vice versa.
While R&B officials refused to speak, sources informed that the traffic junction joining the Secretariat road with the Adarsh Nagar road will be removed, and there will be no straight road between both points anymore.
Instead, vehicles coming from the Lumbini Park side will have to take a left turn and an about turn further ahead, to approach the road towards Adarsh Nagar, which is being widened to take the impact of the changes.
On Secretariat side, the road will be widened and straightened, to align with a new junction further towards the Sarovar Complex, so that the vehicles coming from the Adarsh Nagar side will have to take a right turn to reach the Visitors’ gate to the Secretariat.
“We are merely straightening the existing road on both sides,” said an official on the site.
A traffic island to be set up will serve as selfie point close to the Martyrs’ Memorial, and vehicles arriving from the Khairatabad flyover will have to take an about turn, making a round of the island to reach Lumbini Park & the memorial, where the branch of the road hits the dead end, sources informed.
It is not yet clear if the bus bay near the Secretariat complex would be shifted or rebuilt at the same location.
