Barapullah III: How Delhi lost a decade

A project meant to save minutes for commuters has wasted years instead exposing how poor planning, piecemeal clearances and serial delays make public costs far greater than what official files showThe stop-start journey of Delhi’s 10th road bridge over the Yamuna shows how big public projects often go wrong: not because of one dramatic setback, but because one lapse leads to another — first over land, then permissions, then engineering, and finally accountability. Here is how each of those delays unfolded.The first failure Building on land not fully acquired: The most strik-ing reason for the delay is also the most basic. Less than a year after construction began, a group of people from Nangli Razapur village located between Nizammuddin bridge and DND, adjoining Smriti Van turned up at the site demanding that work be stopped because it was being carried out on land they owned. This came as a surprise even to officials in-volved in the project. The dispute over roughly 8.5 acres of land took nearly seven years, from 2016 to 2023, to resolve, primarily because of back and forth over compen-sation. The land had been classi-fied as ‘riverine’ for which the gov-ernment-notified rate is Rs 17 lakh per acre. The landowners demanded 17 times more — Rs 3 crore per acre. A year into the dispute, Ambed-kar University was asked to conduct a social impact assessment to gauge the project’s impact on local com-munities. All this while the work on a crucial 700 metres of alignment and a key pillar couldn’t begin. Fi-nally, in 2024 the compensation of Rs 17.6 lakh per acre was accepted as the market value and paid. Then came the surprises that should not have been surprises: Nearly a dec-ade after the project was approved, project officials in 2023 identified nearly 300 trees along the alignment that needed to be transplanted, pruned or felled. The trees were on a piece of land acquired years after the construction began. This meant fresh permissions, additional com-pliance — and more waiting. The Delhi Preservation of Trees Act and approvals from the Supreme Court-appointed Central Empow-ered Committee came into play. A new survey showed that only 85 trees needed to be cut; the rest could be transplanted or pruned without affecting the alignment. In July 2025, the approvals came for around 170 trees.A similar pattern appears across other issues: things that should have been known at the planning stage surfaced after construction was un-der way. High-tension lines had to be shifted. Clearances had to be revis-ited. Surveys had to be redone. Each issue may sound manageable in isolation.Together, they tell a story of a project that moved faster on paper — the initial estimate for completion was 30 months — than in preparation. Hard engineering, then the pandemic: To be fair, the project was never simple. Building across the Yamu-na floodplain involves difficult soil, deep foundations and unusual engi-neering demands. Floods affected work, and even a suspected pier tilt had to be stabilised before progress could resume.The foundations for the piers had to go nearly 50 metres deep, with wells of around 14 metres in diameter — a reminder that this was never a routine flyover job. And then the world stopped dur-ing the Covid pandemic, which came more than two years after the origi-nal completion deadline. It disrupted labour and logistics. Between 2019-20 and 2022-23, the project moved from about 80% to 82%.An inauguration without completion: This project also reflects a now-fa-miliar Indian infrastructure habit: inaugurating pieces of a larger work with fanfare while the full public benefit remains far away. In August 2021, two small loops were opened, with state politicians promising speedy completion of the remaining 90%-plus project. This is not the only public pro-ject in India to go through mul-tiple inaugurations. The politics of repeated ribbon-cutting — one project, several moments of photo oppos, but no word on final delivery — is now almost a national norm.The official overrun is not the real cost: Depending on which figure is taken as the original benchmark — the tender cost or the original sanctioned estimate — the 10-year delay will add roughly Rs 400 crore to Rs 600 crore. But that’s only a fraction of what commuters in Delhi have already paid. Factoring in the thou-sands of tons of extra CO2 pumped into the air by idling engines at DND and Nizammuddin bridge, the pro-ductivity hours lost in gridlock, and the stress and fuel wasted in daily congestion, the real cost of this delay becomes several times higher.This is in a city that’s already short of bridges by global stand-ards. London and Paris have more than twice as many bridges across the Thames and Seine as Delhi has across the Yamuna — despite hav-ing populations that are half or less than that of the capital region. In the 10 years that Barapullah III has overshot its schedule, the popula-tion of Delhi, Noida and Greater Noida has grown by millions, with much higher vehicle-to-population ratio than before.By late 2025, the story had be-come serious enough to trigger an anti-corruption inquiry into the de-lay, cost overruns and arbitration payouts linked to the project. When TOI visited the construc-tion site in mid-March, at least eight concrete piers were yet to be connected to the elevated stretches near the Yamuna. Work was mov-ing at full pace, though, raising hopes that the eighth deadline for completion — June this year — may not be missedCome late, come good Delhi’s smartest yamuna crossing?Designed with non-motorists in mind too: Unlike most Delhi bridges, this bridge promises to have dedicated cycle tracks and footpaths/walkways, giving it a more complete mobility design9 loops to smoother exit: The project includes nine loops — four at Sarai Kale Khan and five at Mayur Vihar — to distribute traffic efficiently instead of dumping all vehicles at one or two choke points A distinctive engineering element: Officials have described the river section as an ‘extradosed bridge’ with a pier-supported elevated structure, intended to reduce the number of piers in the Yamuna’s active flow zone11 bridges short?Delhi, with around 20m population, has just nine road overbridges across the Yamuna over a 22km stretch, while many others have over three times as many river bridgesGlobal standard suggests at least one major crossing per 1 million population. By that measure, Delhi needs around 20 crossings —S Velumurugan, Chief Scientist (retd), Central Road Research Institute