Question mark over Agra-Lucknow Expressway

The Samajwadi Party's dream project Agra-Lucknow Expressway, fashioned to rival BSP supremo Mayawati's Yamuna Expressway, is finding no support from financiers, venture-capitalists and other private investors.

The 270-km access-controlled six-lane Agra-Lucknow greenfield expressway has failed to woo investors. This is being seen as a major setback to Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's ambitious project.

Officials of the Uttar Pradesh Expressway Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) that invited bids for the project to be implemented on build operate transfer (BOT) toll model, are now working on alternative plans after none of the five companies including Essel Infrastructure, Reliance Infrastructure and Jaypee Group, showed any interest in the project.

Some of the developers in fact doubted the feasibility of the project. They suggested that the expressway be modelled on the Yamuna Expressway that includes five land parcels to support the cost of the project.

Interestingly, the Samajwadi Party had all along opposed the Mayawati project for being exploitative and anti-farmer. The Agra-Lucknow Expressway came up abruptly as there never was a demand from any section for this so-called dream project.

Environmentalists and farmers' bodies initially objected to the project for which no feasibility studies had been conducted. Several opposition leaders had initially called it a "political expressway to benefit vote banks".

For the Samajwadi Party, this has become a matter of prestige. Sources said the state government was now exploring ways to add some new features to woo investors. The chief minister is also looking for central government funds to fill the budgetry gap, should the state government decide to go ahead with its own resources.