Narendra Modi launches Purvanchal Expressway: Rs 23,000 cr project to cover eight districts, transform east Uttar Pradesh

Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the Rs 23,000 crore Purvanchal highway in Azamgarh on Saturday. The Purvanchal Expressway is expected to not only provide swifter connectivity between Delhi and Ghazipur but also serve as a platform to develop new industries and institutions along the expressway. In fact, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath described expressway as “the lifeline of development in east Uttar Pradesh" on Saturday. Here’s all you need to know about the expressway: [caption id=“attachment_4743991” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Prime Minister Narendra Modi lays the foundation stone for Purvanchal Expressway in Azamgarh. Twitter/@PIB[/caption] Length of the expressway? The Purvanchal Expressway will be 340-kilometres long. It will begin from Chand Sarai village on Lucknow-Sultanpur road (NH 731) and end at Haidariya village in Ghazipur district, about 18 km from the UP-Bihar order. It is reported that the expressway will pass through eight districts— Barabanki, Amethi, Sultanpur, Faizabad, Ambedkar Nagar, Azamgarh, Mau and Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh. When will it be ready? The construction of the expressway linking Lucknow with Ghazipur is expected to complete in three years. The decision to launch the 354 km-long expressway was taken at a Cabinet meeting chaired by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on 10 July. Why is the expressway important? By 2021, the Purvanchal Expressway will reduce the time taken to travel from Lucknow to Ghazipur to 5 hours, a report in Zee News claimed. The Purvanchal Expressway, a report in NDTV said, will be linked with the Lucknow-Agra Expressway and Yamuna Expressway, connecting Agra to Delhi. This will bring down the travel time between Delhi and east Uttar Pradesh. It also reported that the Purvanchal Expressway will be linked with Varanasi separately. Zee News reported that the state government has planned to set up 10 industrial parks along the route of the expressway. The land for the industrial park will be identified soon. [caption id=“attachment_4496671” align=“alignright” width=“380”] File image of Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav. PTI.[/caption] Controversy surrounding the expressway According to PTI, hours before the prime minister launched the expressway project, former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav made remarks about the launch. He said that it was a project proposed by his government and it was merely being relaunched now. “This was originally Samajwadi Purvanchal Expressway, but the word Samajwadi has been dropped,” the Samajwadi Party (SP) chief said in a press conference at the party headquarters in Lucknow. The SP leader claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will do anything to stay in power. He said that only the BJP government had the “immense courage” to claim someone else’s project as their own without remorse. Yadav said that his party’s project had planned to construct a six-lane expressway, which could be expanded to eight lanes but, the new project cannot be expanded, according to reports on the Press Trust of India. Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma refused the accusations made by Yadav. He said that the Samajwadi Party chief was insulting development work itself by claiming credit for projects that are implemented by “the government of the day”. With PTI inputs