UP speeding up Rs 12k crore Lucknow-Ballia Expressway

Consultant for the 382-km expressway will be appointed within a month

Seeking to move swiftly on the proposed Lucknow-Ballia Expressway, the Uttar Pradesh government is in the process of selecting a consultant for the mega road project estimated to cost Rs 12,000 crore. The 382 km expressway is aimed at providing seamless travel from Ballia to Greater Noida and, in effect, connects eastern UP with the National Capital Region (NCR). It would complement the under-construction Agra-Lucknow Expressway and the operational 165 km Yamuna Expressway (Agra-Greater Noida).

“We are in the process of selecting the consultant for preparing the feasibility and detailed project report (DPR) of the expressway,” UP Expressway Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) chairman and CEO Navneet Sehgal told Business Standard. The 302 km long Agra-Lucknow Expressway is the most ambitious project of UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and estimated to cost Rs  5,000 crore.

After the project failed to elicit encouraging response from the private sector, the government decided to construct the mega access control expressway under the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract. Under this, the project was divided into five separate parcels and awarded to different developers after bidding.

The entire cost of the project is being borne by the state government out of its own resources and it is touted as the longest expressway in India being developed in the state sector. UP is pushing for Agra-Lucknow Expressway to be operational by October 2016. It spans 10 districts, which would be intersected by it viz., Agra, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Etawah, Auraiya, Kannauj, Kanpur City, Unnao, Hardoi and Lucknow.

The proposed Lucknow-Ballia Expressway is also likely to follow the EPC route. The expressway would traverse Azamgarh, which is the parliamentary constituency of ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) president Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The Akhilesh government is moving fast on its flagship projects, which also include Lucknow Metro Rail, Lucknow IT City, Lucknow International Cricket Stadium etc so that they are operational before the 2017 assembly polls.