Gurgaon: The wait patiently for its U-turn underpass around the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway was extended by more than three months as the building job has come to a standstill with employees migrating back to the villages. The building of this U-turn underpass nearby Ambience Theater has hit a roadblock due to a delay in altering the Indraprastha Gas Limited (IGL) gas pipeline because of its ban on non-medical utilization of oxygen. The job was likely to be finished annually. Even the NHAI and its builder have promised the lockdown constraints coupled with delay in altering the IGL pipeline had stopped their job for the last couple of days. “The workforce had come down considerably as a result of lockdown in Delhi accompanied by curbs from town. We were able to keep a few employees as the job was in progress. But for the last couple of days, our job had come to standstill due to the delay in altering the pipeline. Since there was no job without a clarity as it could restart, employees began leaving and today we’re left not one employee,” said an officer of RK contractor, NHAI’s job builder. The NHAI maintained that perennial correspondence with an agency tasked with all the changing of this gas pipeline failed to yield any positive reaction. “They say their workers are infected with Covid. In addition, there’s a ban to the industrial utilization of medical oxygen, which is necessary for welding functions,” stated an NHAI official. IGL, meanwhile, denied that the ban on using medical oxygen industrial purposes is that the main reason behind its delay. “The delay is mostly because the vast majority of our employees have tested positive. We don’t have sufficient funds to set up on the job site right now. We had finished all our changing function and the rest will be carried out when we put our workforce power back,” said a senior officer of IGL. Last month ahead of the Covid surge, NHAI had told TOI that the U-turn underpass is going to be thrown open to the general public by May 15.