The Uttar Pradesh Expressway Development Authority is racing against time with the state government setting a strict deadline of December 2021 to finish work on two of its ambitious infrastructure projects: the Bundelkhand Expressway and the Poorvanchal Expressway.
“There is too much work and completing both projects ahead of 2022 seems to be mammoth task. In case of Bundelkhand Expressway, we have not even started the competitive bidding progress. However, political compulsions require them to complete it ahead of the state assembly elections,” a senior official from UPEDA told this publication.
The 289 kilometer Bundlekhand Expressway will connect the Bundelkhand region with mainland Uttar Pradesh and the National Capital Region (NCR) via the Agra-Lucknow and the Agra-Greater Noida Yamuna expressways. The project will cost Rs 14,000 crore and the government has set the deadline of December 2021 for the project.
The 353 km Purvanchal Expressway, for which work has already started, will connect Lucknow to Ghazipur by passing through Barabanki, Sultanpur, Faizabad, Ambedkar Nagar, Azamgarh and Mau districts and will terminate at Haidaria in Ghazipur. The expressway is to be linked with Varanasi and Gorakhpur through a separate link road and will cost Rs 23,000 crore. The state government has set deadline of September 2020 for completion.
“The government has asked us to dedicate all our focus on these two projects. So far, for both the projects, the land acquisition process was more or less smooth. We are just waiting for the elections to be over and, after that, the authority will float competitive bidding for Bundelkhand Expressway... most likely by first week of June,” the official added.
Almost 96 per cent of the 4,332 hectares needed for the Purvanchal Expressway, sources say, has been acquired, as have about 60 per cent of the 3,642 hectares need for the Bundelkhand Expressway. The process for acquiring the rest of the land is already in top gear and will be completed by the September this year.
One of the reasons why the state government is rushing forward with the two projects is political. Two of the state’s major expressways were constructed under the rival BSP and SP led governments. While the Mayawati government had constructed the Yamuna Expressway, the Akhilesh Yadav government had constructed the Lucknow-Agra Expressway and conceived the Poorvanchal Expressway. The land acquisition for the Poorvanchal project had already begun before the BJP-led government came to power in 2017.
The BJP government has continued the work and added to it, clearing a proposed 91-km Rs 5,555 crore road linking Gorakhpur with the Purvanchal Expressway. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had already allocated Rs 1,194 crore in this year’s budget for the expressways. Once completed, the project will link almost all smaller towns in the state to Delhi-NCR.