Corporate Road in Gujarat chokes after Ahmedabad bridge opening, civic body scrambles for solutions

On September 24, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel inaugurated several infrastructure projects in Gujarat’s largest city, Ahmedabad. The Makarba Railway Overbridge was one among them. Built at a cost of Rs 98.60 crore, the bridge was meant to ease traffic chaos caused by the level crossing (LC-24) where commuters would have to wait till the train passes, causing a flood of vehicles crisscrossing from either side.

The project was completed under the Central government’s Phatak Mukt Abhiyan, a scheme aimed at freeing cities of traffic jams caused by railway crossings.

However, the opening of the bridge has created more chaos on the road with the authorities adding more traffic police personnel, widening the road, implementing a capsule design alternative and perhaps adding a traffic signal to correct the alleged fault in the design.

The diversions with the capsule design implemented by AMC after a public outrage on the Makarba railway over bridge. (Express Photo)

Ashwin Jansari, a retired professor who lives on Anandnagar Road and has an office in the Dev Prime building on the Corporate Road which connects one end of the new bridge, has had to change his route to reach his workplace on time. He feels the traffic situation was better earlier. “Earlier (before the opening of the ROB), the traffic was, in fact, not a big issue. I thought the new bridge would make travel on the route easier, but it is creating traffic chaos. Everyone living around the bridge is complaining every day that things should have been considered right from the beginning and it should be designed properly. Now, I have to take a longer route and start early from my house to reach my office on time,” Jansari told The Indian Express.

The diversions with the capsule design implemented by AMC after a public outrage on the Makarba railway over bridge. (Express Photo)

Built in one of the western Ahmedabad’s growing and upscale neighbourhoods with highrise buildings, the 800-metre overbridge was completed one-and-half-years later than scheduled.

Bridge opened on Sept 24, show-cause notice on Sept 28

The 2 km road in Makarba area along the bridge has a mix of residential towers and work and hospitality buildings, call centres, the Vodafone House, YMCA Club, Commerce House 6 Adani, Ramada hotel, Titanium Heights, Pinnacle Business Park, and others — thus it got the name Corporate Road.

The diversions with the capsule design implemented by AMC after a public outrage on the Makarba railway over bridge. (Express Photo)

Days after the Vejalpur bridge — as it is officially called — was opened, social media was flooded with videos of the traffic situation, and the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) had to take note. On September 28, four days after it was opened, the municipal corporation issued the design firm DELF Consulting Engineers (India) Pvt Ltd, a show-cause notice. “Immediately after opening, it has been observed that the bridge lands in close proximity to the Corporate Road Junction, without adequate length for merging, weaving and dispersal of traffic. This has resulted in severe traffic congestion, chaotic movement and vehicular conflict points at the landing end of the bridge, posing a risk to the safety of road users,” the notice read.

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The four-lane Railway Over Bridge (ROB) resulted in congestion and traffic chaos at the junction, Corporate road and SG Highway. On one side, the traffic from SG highway meets at the Corporate crossroads while on the other from Prahladnagar (Sales India) side. The major problem is that the bridge lands at the Corporate road Crossroads Circle. The evening traffic snarls have been worsened by the Navratri festival in the major venues such as Rajpath, Karnavati and YMCA clubs.

“The situation has necessitated emergency measures, including deployment of traffic police personnel and temporary traffic management arrangements, jointly with the Traffic Police and the South-West Zone engineering staff, merely to keep the junction functional. A facility created for relief to citizens has thus become a source of inconvenience to them,” the AMC said in a statement seeking a clarification from DELF Consulting Engineers (India) Pvt Ltd, an extension of DELF, South Africa, for “negligence and deficiency in professional services”.

The AMC is now implementing a ‘capsule design’ layout to streamline the flow of traffic and reduce congestion. Also, to resolve the traffic issue, it has undertaken the widening of the existing road from Corporate Crossroads to SG Highway to its full width. “Efforts are underway to ensure that the traffic flow on this route improves significantly upon the completion of this work,” Dinesh Gaurav, Deputy Municipal Commissioner, Roads and Building Department, said.

However, even the corrective measures are not providing much relief to the commuters. The AMC is now deliberating over installing a traffic signal, along with widening of the service roads.

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“Widening of the road from Corporate Road to SG Highway had been under consideration/planning before the ROB was opened and is presently subject to approval. Following the opening of the LC-24 Makarba ROB , the prevailing traffic conditions have been reviewed. The Road Project Department is to take up widening work on a priority after the necessary approval, with the objective of completing it in a short time and improving traffic movement along this route,” Gaurav said.

The LC-24 Makarba Railway Overbridge built at a cost of 99 crore that came under scanner within days of its opening to the public. (Express Photo by Bhupendra Rana)

‘600-m stretch, 40 minutes’

Aazim Pathan, a 23-year-old gig worker at a quick commerce firm who resides in Fatehwadi, said he has extended his working hours by an hour. The reason: the traffic snarls have delayed his orders after the bridge was opened and he has to meet the income target he set for himself. “The morning traffic is understandable but the evenings between 6 and 8 pm get worse. It takes me over 1-1.30 hours to cover a 2-3 km distance. Customers often cancel the order while I am stuck in traffic and others complain about late delivery against the swift delivery claims by the company. The traffic was not this bad before the bridge was opened, but it is chaotic now. If the service roads are widened, traffic would not have been an issue,” Pathan opined.

Shrinal Zaveri, who has worked with different firms on the Corporate road for the past 16 years and now works as general manager at Vodafone Idea Limited, Vodafone House, too has similar hassles. “The Makarba flyover has been built by the government only for the convenience of the public, but intentionally or unintentionally after the flyover and new capsule system, a big problem of traffic has arisen instead of convenience. Earlier, there was not this heavy traffic issue on this road. Yesterday evening, I went from Westgate to YMCA Service Road and it took 40 to 45 minutes to cross just a 600-metre stretch in my car. Thousands of employees like me leave the office between 6:30 pm and 8 pm every day and get stuck for more than half an hour in this stretch,” Zaveri said.

J Jayravv, a government officer who lives on the Corporate Road, said, “When there was no bridge there was a traffic issue, but after the bridge was opened, it has gone from bad to worse. The roads are now barricaded and due to the capsule design, we have to take a long U-turn. The service road on one side has been widened so there is little relief but a permanent solution needs to be found.”

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Corrective measures

The AMC has initiated corrective measures to improve traffic channelisation and vehicular movement in the area. “The actual extent of traffic improvement has not yet been quantified. The impact should be assessed through a comparative traffic survey and traffic data before and after implementation of the measures; a quantified improvement can be communicated once the assessment is available,” a senior AMC official said.

Following the show-cause notice, teams of the AMC and DELF have jointly visited the site.

“Based on the traffic survey and prevailing traffic conditions, DELF submitted certain suggestions for corrective measures. The Bridge Project Department is examining and verifying these suggestions. Further action will be taken after this technical assessment is completed and the appropriate course of action is determined,” a senior AMC official told The Indian Express.

A blame game

The AMC has blamed DELF for failing to study the site and traffic situation, while DELF has claimed that conditions at the site have changed since the project started.

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“Prima facie, the deficiencies are directly attributable to your failure to properly study the site and traffic conditions, to foresee the impact of the landing location on the Corporate Road Junction, and to propose suitable design and junction improvement measures at the design stage,” the AMC notice said.

“Since the opening of the bridge, print, electronic and social media have been continuously carrying adverse reports on the faulty planning and design of the ROB, which has seriously damaged the image and reputation of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation before the public and the authorities,” the notice added.

The Khokhra and CTM cross roads where once stood the Hatkeshwar Bridge in Amraiwadi. The new road in its place as AMC has no plan for a new bridge. (Express Photo by Bhupendra Rana)

DELF Consulting Engineers (India) Pvt Ltd, in its response, has denied negligence or deficiency on its part and asked the AMC to close the notice after a joint technical verification. The firm has claimed that the GAD (General Arrangement Drawing) was approved only after review by the state government’s R&B department and the Railways which, it said, found the GAD “generally in order”.

“The AMC had already sanctioned a four-lane ROB ending before Corporate Road (Rs 65 crore) on 16.03.2022, before DELF’s first GAD (13.04.2022). The ROB was fixed within a roughly 40 m TP road corridor,” it said in its response to the show-cause notice, adding that it had pointed out that extending the ROB across Corporate Road would narrow the service roads to nearly 4.1 metres, and land the ROB only about 140 metres before the SG Highway junction.

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DELF maintained that it had not received any project-specific studies for the four-arm junction. “That junction did not operate in its present form at design stage,” it said, attributing part of the congestion to changed conditions after opening, such as nearby works and diversions. It has opposed penalty, recovery, security forfeiture or debarment based only on post-opening congestion.

A year ago, when another bridge hit a wall — literally

The Makarba railway bridge is not the only case exposing how infrastructure projects lack
coordination and planning between agencies. A year ago, The Indian Express reported how a railway overbridge connecting Ghuma with neighbouring areas like Shela, Shilaj in Bopal, under the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority (AUDA), had “landed” in the wall of a private farm. This bridge was constructed by the Railway Authority and the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL). The south end of the railway bridge ran into a boundary wall of a private farm house on one end.

Vehicles have to take a sharp curve to climb and alight from the bridge, which was completed at a cost of over Rs 65 crore. Vehicles can easily climb the bridge from Bopal towards Ghuma side, but while descending towards Shilaj, it is blocked by the boundary wall of a private property. A 300-metre distance between the bridge and the Shilaj main road has no linear connectivity. Connecting the road to the ROB was not possible since it was an agricultural zone. However, the government this year gave permission to change the zone from agriculture to “developable”.

AUDA and Railways prepared the design of this bridge in 2017 and started its work in 2019. However, due to lack of connectivity at one end, commuters use it “at their own risk”. “The state government has changed the zone from agricultural to residential zone,” an AUDA official told The Indian Express.

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“The bridge terminates on the Shela-Ghuma side, where the approach connection falls under AUDA’s jurisdiction. Due to land-related constraints, the bridge currently ends without a proper connection to the existing road. The matter relates to the availability and position of land and the approach-road arrangement are under AUDA’s jurisdiction and coordination with the authority concerned is required to resolve the connectivity issue,” the official added.

Structural issues: Built in 2017 for Rs 40 cr, bridge demolished

The Hatkeshwar Bridge, a crucial link between Khokhra and CTM cross roads in Ahmedabad, faced criticism after its opening in November 2017 due to “serious structural issues”. It was demolished within five years of its construction. The demolition work began on August 21,2025.

Following the demolition of the bridge, a new road has been constructed at the site. “At present, no new flyover bridge at Hatkeshwar Junction has been planned,” a senior AMC official told this newspaper.

Built at a cost of Rs 40 crore, it was demolished at a cost of nearly Rs 4 crore by a Mumbai-based company Shri Ganesh Corporation. The AMC has decided to recover the demolition cost of nearly Rs 4 crore from the contractor, Ajay Engineering Infrastructure Private Limited.

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AMC authorities stated that payment for another flyover project by the contractor at the Pallav junction in Naranpura, which is complete, was withheld in order to ensure recovery.

The bridge is being dismantled in six different stages with technical advice being taken from Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, for the demolition work.