Rs 55 Crore Six-Lane Underpass Tendered at Gurugram's Z Chowk

GURUGRAM: The Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority has issued a tender for a six-lane underpass at Z Chowk near Millennium City Centre Metro station, advancing a Rs 55 crore project intended to separate through traffic from one of central Gurugram’s busiest surface intersections.

The underpass is planned on the IFFCO Chowk–RD City movement, with three lanes in each direction. GMDA estimates that around one lakh vehicles use Z Chowk every day. The intersection also handles traffic heading towards Golf Course Road, Gold Souk, Signature Towers and Subhash Chowk, creating frequent merging conflicts during office peaks.

The tender follows approval given at a GMDA meeting chaired by chief minister Nayab Singh Saini last year. The design was subsequently coordinated with Gurugram Metro Rail Limited and the National Capital Region Transport Corporation because both future transit systems have a stake in the same area. Their no-objection clearances were needed before road construction could proceed.

The project is proposed at roughly 1.25km in length. In addition to the sunken carriageway, the plan includes three-lane service roads on both sides, effectively creating a 12-lane road cross-section at the junction. Solar panels are proposed for street lighting, while a rainwater-harvesting system is meant to reduce the risk of the underpass becoming a water trap during monsoon showers.

Once the contract is awarded, the stipulated construction period is 18 months. That deadline begins after allotment, not from the date of the tender. The authority will still need to complete bid evaluation, site handover, utility mapping and traffic-diversion planning before full-scale excavation can begin.

Z Chowk’s congestion is not caused by road capacity alone. City buses and autos frequently stop on the carriageway because the area lacks properly designed stands. Unregulated pickup activity narrows usable lanes and creates sudden pedestrian movement. The underpass plan should therefore include safe bus bays, auto spaces and walking connections to both the existing and proposed metro stations.

Drainage will be the project’s most closely watched engineering element. Gurugram underpasses have repeatedly faced flooding concerns when pumps, sumps or outlets fail. A harvesting system can help, but it cannot replace adequate pumping capacity, backup power and a maintenance contract that operates through the entire monsoon.

The tender is an important step, but it is not the same as a completed traffic solution. GMDA must now disclose the construction sequence and keep access to the metro station functional. If delivered with reliable drainage and organised public-transport stops, the underpass could improve movement; without those details, extra lanes may simply move the bottleneck to the next junction.