Yogi fast tracks Rs 36,000 crore Ganga Expressway project
With less than 8 months remaining for the crucial 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, the Yogi Adityanath government has acquired nearly 60 per cent of the land required for the flagship Ganga Expressway project.
Lucknow / June 16, 2021
With less than 8 months remaining for the crucial 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, the Yogi Adityanath government has acquired nearly 60 per cent of the land required for the flagship Ganga Expressway project.
An estimated 7,800 hectare land is required for the proposed Rs 36,000 crore infrastructure project, of which more than 4,600 hectares has so far been purchased/acquired by the nodal agency, UP Expressway Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA).
The 66th UPEIDA Board meeting presided over by its CEO Awanish Kumar Awasthi, who is also the UP additional chief secretary, home department, here tuesday approved the draft financial advisory report prepared by SBI Capital Markets Limited.
Touted as the world’s largest access controlled expressway project once it is completed, the Ganga Expressway would traverse Meerut, Hapur, Bulandshahar, Amroha, Sambhal, Badaun, Shahjahanpur, Hardoi, Unnao, Unnao, Rae Bareli, Pratapgarh and Prayagraj districts.
Meanwhile, the UPEIDA will invite bids from private and public oil marketing companies for setting up eight fuel outlets on Rs 23,000 crore Purvanchal Expressway, whose main carriageway is expected to be thrown open to the public next month. More than 90 per cent of its civil work is complete.
The successful bidder(s) will set up company owned company operated (COCO) fuel outlets.
Purvanchal Expressway entails acquisition of about 4,330 hectares of land and cuts across nine districts namely Lucknow, Barabanki, Faizabad, Ambedkarnagar, Amethi, Sultanpur, Azamgarh, Mau and Ghazipur.
It will provide seamless connectivity between the backward Eastern UP districts to the National Capital Region (NCR) via the already operational Agra-Lucknow Expressway and Agra-Greater Noida Yamuna Expressway.
The Expressway will entail an airstrip in Sultanpur district for allowing landing and takeoff to the Indian Air Force (IAF) fighter planes during emergency. Similar facility is also available with Agra-Lucknow Expressway.
Besides two other major expressway projects are also underway viz. Rs 15,000 crore Bundelkhand Expressway and the Rs 5,800 crore Gorakhpur Link Expressway.
This way, expressway projects totalling Rs 80,000 crore are currently being developed in UP under the Yogi dispensation. Yamuna Expressway and Agra-Lucknow Expressway were commissioned during the previous Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav regimes.
While speaking at a public function in his Varanasi parliamentary constituency in November 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had referred to UP as the ‘Express Pradesh’ due to the number of expressway projects in the state.
The state is raising funds from commercial banks and other financial institutions, apart from allocating budgetary grants, to fund these projects after they failed to take off under the public private partnership (PPP) model.
(Virendra Singh Rawat is a Lucknow based journalist, who writes on contemporary issues of industry, economy, agriculture, infrastructure, budget etc)
With less than 8 months remaining for the crucial 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, the Yogi Adityanath government has acquired nearly 60 per cent of the land required for the flagship Ganga Expressway project.
An estimated 7,800 hectare land is required for the proposed Rs 36,000 crore infrastructure project, of which more than 4,600 hectares has so far been purchased/acquired by the nodal agency, UP Expressway Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA).
The 66th UPEIDA Board meeting presided over by its CEO Awanish Kumar Awasthi, who is also the UP additional chief secretary, home department, here tuesday approved the draft financial advisory report prepared by SBI Capital Markets Limited.
Touted as the world’s largest access controlled expressway project once it is completed, the Ganga Expressway would traverse Meerut, Hapur, Bulandshahar, Amroha, Sambhal, Badaun, Shahjahanpur, Hardoi, Unnao, Unnao, Rae Bareli, Pratapgarh and Prayagraj districts.
Meanwhile, the UPEIDA will invite bids from private and public oil marketing companies for setting up eight fuel outlets on Rs 23,000 crore Purvanchal Expressway, whose main carriageway is expected to be thrown open to the public next month. More than 90 per cent of its civil work is complete.
The successful bidder(s) will set up company owned company operated (COCO) fuel outlets.
Purvanchal Expressway entails acquisition of about 4,330 hectares of land and cuts across nine districts namely Lucknow, Barabanki, Faizabad, Ambedkarnagar, Amethi, Sultanpur, Azamgarh, Mau and Ghazipur.
It will provide seamless connectivity between the backward Eastern UP districts to the National Capital Region (NCR) via the already operational Agra-Lucknow Expressway and Agra-Greater Noida Yamuna Expressway.
The Expressway will entail an airstrip in Sultanpur district for allowing landing and takeoff to the Indian Air Force (IAF) fighter planes during emergency. Similar facility is also available with Agra-Lucknow Expressway.
Besides two other major expressway projects are also underway viz. Rs 15,000 crore Bundelkhand Expressway and the Rs 5,800 crore Gorakhpur Link Expressway.
This way, expressway projects totalling Rs 80,000 crore are currently being developed in UP under the Yogi dispensation. Yamuna Expressway and Agra-Lucknow Expressway were commissioned during the previous Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav regimes.
While speaking at a public function in his Varanasi parliamentary constituency in November 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had referred to UP as the ‘Express Pradesh’ due to the number of expressway projects in the state.
The state is raising funds from commercial banks and other financial institutions, apart from allocating budgetary grants, to fund these projects after they failed to take off under the public private partnership (PPP) model.
(Virendra Singh Rawat is a Lucknow based journalist, who writes on contemporary issues of industry, economy, agriculture, infrastructure, budget etc)
