Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Purvanchal Expressway on November 16, 2021, with a stellar airshow on the 3.2 km long airstrip, constructed on the Expressway in Sultanpur district. The foundation stone of Purvanchal Expressway was laid on July 14, 2018, a little over three years ago. The Purvanchal Expressway, which has been constructed at a cost of about Rs 22,500 crore, starts from Chandsarai village, located near the existing Lucknow-Sultanpur Road (NH-731), in Lucknow district. It ends at Haidaria village on National Highway 31 in Ghazipur, 18 km from the UP-Bihar border, in Ghazipur district. This expressway connects the State capital Lucknow to the eastern region, via Azamgarh. With the development of this expressway, the eastern region of the State would not only be connected to Lucknow, but also to the National Capital through Agra-Lucknow and Yamuna Expressways. The districts falling on this greenfield expressway are Lucknow, Barabanki, Amethi, Sultanpur, Ayodhya, Ambedkar Nagar, Azamgarh, Mau and Ghazipur. The Purvanchal Expressway is going to boost the economic development of the eastern parts of Uttar Pradesh, like never before.
The Purvanchal Expressway will have 22 flyovers, 7 railway-over-bridges (ROB), 7 major bridges, 114 minor bridges, 6 toll plazas, 45 vehicular-underpasses (VUP), 87 pedestrian underpass and 525 box culverts. The new expressway will have CNG stations, electric recharge stations for vehicles and will be connected with the defence corridor through the Agra and Bundelkhand expressways. The Purvanchal expressway has been designed for the movement of vehicles at a speed of 120km per hour, but the speed has been fixed at 100kmph. The expressway is among those that will provide future-ready road connectivity to all corners of the State. They include the already open Delhi-Meerut Link Expressway (96km), Bundelkhand Expressway (296km), Gorakhpur Link Expressway (92km), Ganga Expressway (600km), Lucknow Kanpur Elevated National Expressway (63km).
This expressway will lead to a better future at a faster pace— this expressway is for Uttar Pradesh’s development and for building a new UP, which is a reflection of modern facilities and is also a proof of accomplishments by the double engine sarkaar of Modi and Yogi that has always delivered. Uttar Pradesh was once called a BIMARU State but today with a GSDP in excess of Rs 17 lakh crore, it is ranked second in ease of doing business (EODB). When the Yogi government took charge in 2017, only one and a half airports were functional. Today, five international airports in Varanasi, Lucknow, Kushinagar, Noida and Ayodhya are either operational or close to being completed. Speaking of the 341 km long Purvanchal Expressway, this 6 lane expressway is expandable to an 8 lane one and the per kilometre cost of construction works out to roughly Rs 11 crore. This makes it a highly cost-effective proposition, because the usual per kilometre cost of a 6 lane expressway would be anywhere between Rs 14-16 crore, if not more.
The emergency landing provision for fighter jets makes the Purvanchal Expressway unique in every sense of the word. Those criticising the Modi government for the spectacular air show which had the likes of a Mirage 2000 landing on the expressway, is that very lot, which ignored the defence infrastructure in the country for decades. Who can forget how many power cuts used to happen in UP earlier, under the inept regimes of Congress, Samajwadi Party and the BSP? Who can forget what the abysmal law and order condition in UP was, before 2017 and who can forget what the condition of medical facilities in UP was? The less said, the better. The harsh truth is that, both Delhi and Lucknow were dominated by incompetent political dynasties for decades together. For years and years, this partnership of family members, kept crushing the aspirations of UP. All that changed however, after PM Modi took charge in 2014 and Yogi Adityanath became the CM in 2017.
In sharp contrast, in the last four and a half years in UP, whether in the East or the West, thousands of villages have been connected by new roads and thousands of kilometers of new roads have been built. The scale and speed under which the Modi and Yogi governments have dramatically upscaled infrastructure landscape in Uttar Pradesh is the stuff that folklores are made of. The dream of a developed UP is now visible. New medical colleges are being built, AIIMS is coming up, modern educational institutions are being built in UP. Just a few weeks ago the international airport in Kushinagar was inaugurated. Parts of a vast State like UP were earlier cut off from each other to a great extent. People used to reluctantly travel to different parts of the State, as they were troubled by the lack of connectivity. For the people of East Uttar Pradesh, even reaching Lucknow was quite a task. For previous Chief Ministers, development was limited to where they had their homes. In the case of Akhilesh Yadav, things were much worse–even his own constituency of Azamgarh was kept away from the fruits of development. But today, the demands of Eastern UP or Purvanchal are given just as much importance, as the demands of Western UP. Balanced growth is something that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is fully committed to.
Very soon new industries will start coming up around Purvanchal Expressway. In the coming days, in the cities situated along these expressways, work on products related to food processing, milk, cold storage, storage of fruits and vegetables, cereal, animal husbandry and other agricultural products are going to increase rapidly. Skilled manpower is essential to the industrialization of UP. So work has also been started to train the requisite manpower. ITI and other training institutes and medical institutes will also be established in these cities. The Defence Corridor being built in UP is also going to bring new employment opportunities here.
When Yogi Adityanath came to power in 2017,UP had two functional expressways, the 165 kilometres long Yamuna Expressway, which links Agra with the National Capital Region (NCR) and the Lucknow-Agra E-way, stretching to a length of 302 km. In ten years between 2007 and 2017, the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party government and the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) government had completed just one expressway each. But nearly five years since it took charge, the Yogi Adityanath government has completed the Purvanchal Expressway and work on three other E-ways has also started, with two,namely the 296 kilometre long Bundelkhand Expressway and the 91 kilometre long Gorakhpur Link E-way, in an advanced stage of construction. Land acquisition for the State’s sixth and longest, the 594-km-long Ganga E-way, is nearing completion and the PM is likely to lay the foundation for its construction in December.
Under the four E-ways projects that it is currently working on, UP is constructing an expressway network of over 1350 km. When all these expressways are complete, almost every second district of the State will have an expressway passing through it. Uttar Pradesh will become the first State to have an expressway stretching across its entire length. Using the three expressways, the 1000 kilometre distance between Delhi and the eastern border of UP can now be covered under 12 hours. On the northern side (of the Purvanchal expressway) is Gorakhpur, on the southern side is Prayagraj. Reaching Azamgarh from Lucknow took at least four to five hours earlier, now, within two and a half hours one can go to Azamgarh from Lucknow. That will be a major advantage of the expressway.
The Purvanchal E-way has been completed in a record time of barely 40 months, despite two Covid waves. Originating in Gorakhpur, the Gorakhpur Link Expressway will pass through two districts — Kabir Nagar and Ambedkar Nagar, and join the Purvanchal Expressway in Azamgarh. More than 30% of work on the expressway has already been completed. The Purvanchal E-way is also being extended to the Ballia district, the easternmost part of UP, with a 30-km-long link. The 296-km-long Bundelkhand E-way, currently under construction, will be an expressway, right from the border of Madhya Pradesh, passing through Chitrakoot, Banda, Mahoba, Hamirpur, Jalaun, Auraiya and Etawah and linking the region to Delhi.
The Bundelkhand E-way joins the Lucknow-Agra Expressway in Etawah, linking the semi-arid and drought-prone region to the National Capital Region (NCR), through the Lucknow-Agra and Yamuna expressways. This E-way is critical for the success of the Uttar Pradesh Defence Corridor, as a large part of the Corridor, including two nodes in Jhansi and Chitrakoot, lie in the Bundelkhand region. Construction of the expressway began in early 2020. Around 75% cent of the work on the expressway has been completed. The Ganga E-way, the State’s longest, was first proposed in the late 2000s under the Mayawati govt. However, the Allahabad High Court canceled the project’s environment clearance in 2009. The proposed alignment of the expressway, it argued, was too close to the Ganga river’s channel and could damage the flood plains of the river. This ambitious project has been revived by the Yogi government. Now, the road has been kept at a safe distance away from the river bank because any eco-sensitive zone will require a lot of approvals. The road is now closer to district headquarters. This is a better model. If the road is closer to the district headquarters, it will make connectivity better. In record time, despite the second wave of Covid-19, 94% of the land acquisition is already done and the tendering process is going on.
Coming back to Purvanchal Expressway, with 36% attendance in the 17th Lok Sabha, Akhilesh Yadav was amongst the the worst performing MPs from Uttar Pradesh. He rarely visits his constituency Azamgarh and what’s making Akhilesh Yadav nervous is the fact that it is the double engine, Modi-Yogi sarkaar, which is connecting his constituency with a high-speed expressway. Purvanchal Expressway was merely an idea on paper during the Akhilesh regime.In fact, the detailed project report (DPR) of the Purvanchal Express of Akhilesh Yadav’s time was faulty and was completely re-worked upon by the Yogi government. The route alignment was optimized, saving almost Rs 3000 crore of taxpayers’ money in the process. Akhilesh Yadav issued a tender for the Purvanchal Expressway when even 25% of the land was not acquired. Even to issue a tender for such a large EPC contract, the said government has to acquire at least 90% of the land before issuing a tender. Hence the entire process of tendering started from scratch after Yogi Adityanath took charge.
Median of Purvanchal Expressway has a provision of a W-beam crash barrier for the safety of vehicles on both sides and the anti-glare screen has also been made for the turns of radius less than 4000 meters. The standards of riding quality maintained for Purvanchal Expressway is 1800 mm,per km, per lane, as per the norms of the Indian Road Congress (IRC). This has already been tested extensively by the third-party technical evaluators using laser profile meters.
In his desperate bid to take credit,Akhilesh Yadav alleged that there is no service lane on the Purvanchal Expressway,to connect the nearby towns and villages.The reality is, across the 341 kilometre length of Purvanchal Expressway, there is a provision of 397 kilometres of service lanes. Additionally, Purvanchal Expressway has the provision for 16 amenity centres across the length of 341 kms – 8 large public convenience centres, with refreshment centres and toilet blocks and 8 smaller ones. Agra-Lucknow Expressway was started in a hurry by Akhilesh,without any fuel station. In Purvanchal Expressway fuel stations, at 8 places are already being allocated to oil companies. The other allegation by Akhilesh that BJP government selected inexperienced players to build the Purvanchal Expressway, is absolutely false.The work of different segments (packages) of Purvanchal Expressway was allocated to well-reputed contractors, based on the fair and transparent E-tendering process. These are Gayatri Projects, APCO Infratech, GR Infra Projects, PNC Infratech and Oriental Structural Engineers,etc. All of these are very reputed infrastructure companies and have executed multiple,high-value, high-quality projects across the nation. In fact, some of these contractors executed projects for some projects in the Akhilesh government also.
Akhilesh Yadav inaugurated the Agra-Lucknow Expressway hurriedly in 2016 when it was only 80% complete. It is evident that the Agra-Lucknow expressway was made in haste, compromising the construction quality by the erstwhile Akhilesh regime. Within just one year of its hasty inauguration, an SUV Car plunged 15-20 feet, after a road caved on a crack in the Agra-Lucknow expressway. Many incomplete works of Agra-Lucknow Expressway were completed after the Yogi government took charge in 2017. List of unfinished works on Agra-Lucknow Expressway is long, which were completed by the Yogi government – 800 metre long Bituminous Concrete, one long bridge, four Interchange bridges, 22.2 km long crash barrier, 37.5 Kms of road marking, 200 Kms of road signage, 289 Kms of medium fencing and 178 Kms of ROW. In any debate on UP infrastructure, BSP talks about 165 Km Greater Noida-Agra Expressway, built in their times and SP flaunts 302 Kms of Agra-Lucknow Expressway built in their times. The hard truth is,in the last 15 years of SP+BSP rule, only 467 Kms of expressways, that too limited only to western UP,were built . In contrast, with Purvanchal Expressway and Bundelkhand Expressway – the double engine sarkaar of Modi and Yogi is adding a whopping 641 Kms to the expressways’ road infrastructure in the State of UP. And this 641 Kms will be achieved in five years versus the 467 Kms achieved over a long period of 15 years. With 91 Kms Gorakhpur Link Expressway and 600 Kms of Ganga Expressway, UP will enter a different league of high quality road networks, across the State.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi rightfully said, even if a person builds a house, he first worries about the roads, examines the soil and considers other aspects. But in UP, we saw a long period of such governments who promised flaky dreams of industrialization, without worrying about connectivity. The result was that due to lack of necessary facilities, many factories located here were locked. It was unfortunate that both Delhi and Lucknow were dominated by political dynasties for decades. For years and years, this partnership of family members kept crushing the aspirations of UP. Today however,the Central,Modi government and BJP led State government of Yogi, is working in tandem, for the all-round development of Uttar Pradesh. Along with connectivity, top priority is also being given to basic amenities, in UP. In just the last 2 years, piped drinking water connection has been given to over 30 lakh rural families. From BIMARU under previous regimes, to becoming a vibrant State today, Uttar Pradesh has certainly come a long way.
The writer is an economist, National Spokesperson of the BJP. Views expressed are personal.