Giving a green signal to the construction of 343-km long Purvanchal Expressway, the state government gave its nod for Request for Quotation (RFQ) for construction of the Greenfield expressway in eight packages, connecting Lucknow with Ghazipur. The approval was given at a cabinet meeting held in Lucknow on Tuesday.
CEO of UPEIDA, Avnish Awasthi said that RFQ should be submitted by February 15 while financial and technical bids will be opened by March this year.
“The high point of this Expressway will be that it would connect four religious cities. Varanasi will be connected through National Highway 33 while Allahabad, Ayodhya and Gorakhpur will be linked through link roads,” he said.
The proposed expressway has faced numerous hiccups. Initially, the Centre had agreed to UP Government’s proposal to finance the project but the NITI Ayog spiked it asking the state to generate its own resources. Later, the state UP Government roped in many nationalized banks who agreed to finance the project.
“The Allahabad Bank will give a loan of Rs 2000 crore while other nationalized banks will give a loan of over Rs 15,000 crore,” Awasthi said.
He said that so far, 88.33 per cent of land has been acquired and by the time the RFQ was submitted, the government would acquire over 90 per cent of the land. Another high point of the expressway will be that it would have a 3000 meter long airstrip at Kudebhar (Sultanpur) which could be used by fighter planes of Indian Air force in exigency.
The cabinet has also approved modifications which includes increasing the width of dividers from 4.5 meter to 5.5 meter and increasing the contract for maintenance of the road from existing 10 years to 15 years.