New Delhi, Mar 3 (IANS): Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Saturday inaugurated a four-lane flyover at Dhaula Kuan here, in a step towards a signal-free corridor from the busy junction to the IGI Airport.

The flyover is near the Metro Station on National Highway No 8 (New NH-48), which is the prime link providing connectivity to IGI Airport from Delhi and the NCR. However, frequent traffic jams in the about three-kilometre-long corridor can make crossing take 30 minutes.

Gadkari said the project had been undertaken to help residents of Delhi and neighbouring areas, and projects of Rs 50,000 crore were underway in Delhi-NCR region to get over the problem of traffic jams.

Officials said that the project had huge challenges in terms of traffic management and presence of a large number of civil and defence facilities.

They said the work on the project started 274 days back, but half of this period saw no work taking place due to security restrictions and environmental prohibitions.

"So the work of the flyover was completed in a record time of just 136 working days," an official said.

He said the NHAI has taken up development of signal-free corridor from Dhaula Kuan interchange to Airport at an estimated cost of Rs 270 crore.