Modi govt to fund Akhilesh Yadav's pet project

Lucknow: Former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav’s dream project — the Purvanchal Expressway — will now get the much-needed financial assistance from the Centre.

Sources said that the Centre has agreed to fund the Rs 20,000 crore project that will link Lucknow to Ghazipur and also connect Ayodhya and Varanasi.

The proposed 351-km project was initially conceptualised during the Akhilesh regime at a cost of Rs 22,000 crore. The government even floated the tender, but after the Yogi government came to power; the project cost was revised to Rs 20,000 crore.

The Bharat Mala project, launched in May, is the Centre’s largest ever outlay for any government scheme that will cover 51,000-km estimated road network, including economic corridors, expressways, and coastal ways.

The land for the expressway that will pass through  is being acquired by the UP Expressway Industrial Development Authority.

The Niti Aayog CEO has stated that in view of “the stretched financial position of the state, it would be most optimal if the project is executed as a joint venture between the Centre and the state through a memorandum of understanding wherein the state bears the land cost by providing their right of way as their equity into the project and the ministry of road transport and highways takes up the construction cost”.

Soon after coming to power, the Yogi government cancelled the tender process through a Cabinet proposal on the grounds that it had been done in a hurry.

The name of the project was also changed from Samajwadi Purvanchal Expressway to Purvanchal Expressway, and the cost of the project was also lowered. The project did not find any mention in the first Budget presented by the Yogi government in June.

A sum of over Rs 4,500 crore has already been spent against 60 per cent of land acquired and around Rs 6,500 crore would be needed for total land acquisition.