The beautification work of 8-km stretch from Dhaula Kuan to IGI airport is expected to be completed by November end, ahead of the first visit by an official delegation associated with the G-20 Summit, sources said on Tuesday.
India will assume the Presidency of the influential group for a year from December 1, 2022, to November 30, 2023.
The visiting officials, delegations and heads of state or governments for the forthcoming G-20 Summit, and millions of visitors and tourists to Delhi will be able to view the city with an entirely different perspective, they said.
“The makeover and beautification work on the road from IGI airport to Dhaula Kuan and beyond on Sardar Patel Marg, being personally supervised on a weekly basis by Lt Governor V K Saxena, is going on as per the schedule,” said sources.
“It is expected to be completed by the end of November, well in advance of the first visit by an official delegation related to the G-20 summit on December 1,” a source at the Raj Niwas said.
Similar aesthetic upgrading projects in several other parts of the city will be undertaken in a phased manner, officials had said in late August.
Saxena, who had visited the stretch along with officials right on the day of assuming office as the LG, had put forth a comprehensive makeover plan and has since been personally monitoring it by visiting the location every Sunday, interacting with labourers among others to ensure timely and effective implementation. He has since visited the site on 19 different occasions, sources said.
The makeover plan, which includes aesthetic upgrading of the stretch by way of uniform colour patterns on flyovers and foot over bridges, horticultural overhaul through flowering plants to achieve a stepped three-coloured pattern, general cleanliness and symmetric installation of fountains and big-sized lion statues, is almost complete, they said.
The works completed so far in “record time” include covering of open drains, overall sprucing up of the stretch by repairing the pavements, central verges and dividers, planting 30,000 seasonal flowers or plants and “painting flyovers in a new red and white colour scheme instead of the earlier black and white with approval of the CRRI (Central Road Research Institute), the source said.
It also includes the installation of aesthetically designed view cutters with ‘Charkha’ and ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ (AKAM) logos at different locations, the source said.
In steps that would affect long-term landscape changes, eight lion statues (six 6ft-high of white marble of two tonnes each, and two of the 13-ft height of black stone (weighing 14 MT each) and nine fountains of 11 ft each are being installed at different locations, they said.