NHAI Begins Iffco Chowk Sinkhole Road Repairs, Reopening Date Open

GURUGRAM: The National Highways Authority of India has begun restoring the road at Iffco Chowk where a sinkhole opened on 25 August, with officials saying bitumen work could finish in about two days if rain holds, though a reopening date for the damaged stretch has not been fixed.

Highway officials said repair work started on Saturday. The damaged portion is being filled in layers with soil and substrate material, with each layer given time to settle before the next stage, and the fill rolled to strengthen the subsurface. An NHAI official said the road repair has started on that layered basis and that laying bitumen over the damaged road would take about two more days provided it does not rain again.

Officials said intermittent rainfall over the past two weeks repeatedly filled the sinkhole, forcing crews to dewater the pit and wait for soil to stabilise before continuing.

NHAI officials said they want the surface properly treated so the cave-in does not recur. They declined to announce a firm reopening date, saying the timeline depends on inspection and review after subsurface treatment and filling are complete. Service lanes will reopen only after that check confirms the repair is stable enough for traffic.

The sinkhole formed after a sewage drain collapsed on 25 August on the Iffco Chowk service lane on the Delhi-to-Jaipur side, barricading two service lanes and disrupting one of the city's busiest junctions. Officials said the collapse was linked to a sewage line flowing under the road from MG Road towards Rajiv Chowk on the Delhi-Gurugram Expressway corridor.

The Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority took nearly one and a half weeks to repair the damaged pipeline because heavy sewage flow slowed replacement work.

A GMDA official said the damaged pipe at the sinkhole has been replaced and adjoining stretches repaired, and that the authority has begun identifying other sewer pipelines in poor condition for repair. The official added that the pipeline from Iffco Chowk to Sikanderpur, described as being in bad shape, would be taken up using machine-wound spiral lining technology.

Iffco Chowk funnels traffic between MG Road, the expressway and U-turn movements towards Delhi and Sukhrali. Barricades on the service lanes have forced diversions for weeks, adding delay for office and retail traffic. Commuters have watched successive phases of dewatering, pipeline rehabilitation and now layered road filling after rain repeatedly interrupted the schedule.

NHAI and GMDA coordination remains central: the highway agency would not restore the carriageway until the sewer under the road was made watertight enough to reduce the risk of another collapse. Officials said the layered fill and compaction are meant to rebuild strength under the bitumen rather than simply patch the surface. Final opening still waits on post-repair inspection rather than on a calendar promise.