noida the sixlane greenfield eastern peripheral expressway epe opened in 2018 as a bypass for delhi by getting traffic between south and north haryana to circumvent the capital routing it through baghpat ghaziabad and gautam budh nagar instead was a critical addition to ncrs road networkalong with the western peripheral expressway the 135km epe formed a ring around delhi that didnt only help reduce congestion on its roads but also gave heavy vehicles travelling between north and south haryana a bypass that was longer but faster kundli to palwal before the epe would take four hours through this new expressway it would take barely an hour and 15 minutesbut that was the epe in its original form today its a pale shadow of that lying in neglect with cracks on its surface and streetlights defunct vehicles parked on its sides like on city roads and dozens of vehicles driving on the wrong side boards advertise a tollfree 24x7 helpline number 1033 for seeking assistance during emergencies despite calling the number several times nobody picked up users also complain about a lack of utilities like washrooms and restaurants theres just one eatery at the kundli toll plaza besides with no repair shops drivers face a challenge during getting tyres and snags fixed the drive from kundli to the palwal shows the expressways sidewalls have got damaged in places and though solarpowered only a few lights lit up the epe at dasna rasulpur and duhai at night there was also no patrolling vehicle in sight at bilakbarpur a family had stopped their car on the roadside as a child wanted to relieve himself since there is no toilet on the entire stretch we had to park the car on the roadside said rakesh kumar the childs father even as vehicles zoomed past them the road is patchworked at several placesone near sirsa village in greater noida slows traffic down on the stretch at shahjahanpur the epe crosses the yamuna but the bridges extension joint has developed problems so three lanes on the palwalkundli carriageway are closed traffic gets diverted to a lane on the kondlipalwal route triggering jams a guard deployed at the spot said it would take at least two weeks to fixthere are two fuel stations on the kundlipalwal side one in the dasna area and another at atta nauragpur in gautam budh nagar but none on the palwalkundli side on the palwalkundli carriageway workers were seen carrying out repairs of the road surface at different places the expressway has rough patches in maujpur rampur and bilakbarpur of one is travelling towards kundli at dasna parked trucks none with indicator lights on lined the roadside this has caused several accidents on highways across ncr at night when motorists have not able to spot a parked vehicle but there are no cops posted here for enforcement at duhai municipal waste and crop residue was piled on the roadside a sight you would associate with an internal city road rather than