Developing infrastructure has been one of the main priorities of the BJP governments. Whenever BJP forms a government, the connectivity projects get a major boost, be it the golden quadrilateral project of the Vajpayee government or the UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) scheme of the Modi government. The state governments under the BJP move on the same line, for example, governments of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh brought revolutionary changes as far as connectivity in their respective states is concerned. The Uttar Pradesh government under Yogi Adityanath also seems to be moving on the same path as it plans to connect every region of the state by 2022.
The Yamuna and Agra-Lucknow Expressways have a trademark of Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav government. The Yogi government is executing four large scale highway projects with 341 Km long Purvanchal Expressway which connects Lucknow from Ghazipur via Amethi, Ambedkar Nagar, Sultanpur, Faizabad, Azamgarh and Mau on the priority list. So far the government has completed the land acquisition for 96 percent of the project and rest of the acquisition will be completed by June 15. “We are targeting to open the main carriageway for public by August 2020,” said UP Expressway’s Industrial Development Authority CEO Awanish Awasthi.
The ambitious highway will link central UP with eastern UP. Western UP is already connected through the 302 km long Agra-Lucknow Expressway while Agra and Delhi are connected through the 205km long Yamuna Expressway. Therefore, the Purvanchal Expressway will serve as a link between Delhi and the easternmost border of UP. After the completion of this project, the entire Uttar Pradesh would be crisscrossed in not more than 10 hours.
The other three projects are 91 km long Gorakhpur link expressway which will connect the constituency of CM with Purvanchal expressway. The 195 Km long Prayagraj Expressway which will connect Allahabad with Purvanchal expressway near Lucknow is the third big-ticket infrastructure project being envisaged by UP government.
The fourth project which has been renamed as Atal Path (Previously named Bundelkhand Expressway) will be a four-lane 293-km-long. According to officials, the project will start from Jhansi and pass through the most backward districts like Chitrakoot, Banda, Hamirpur, Auraiya and Jalaun. From Jalaun, the highway will pass through Etawah district and reach Naseempur via Bateshwar before joining the Agra-Lucknow Expressway. In 2017, Chief Minister Yogi Aditya Nath had announced the plan to connect Bundelkhand Expressway or the Atal Path to Agra Lucknow Expressway. The highway will start from the holy city of Chitrakoot in Bundelkhand and connect the underdeveloped region of the state with western UP.
In recent decades, the economy of Uttar Pradesh has not grown at a good pace due to lackluster administration of the Samajwadi and Bahujan Samaj Party. On the other hand, neighboring states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh registered the double-digit growth in the same time-frame given the good governance of NDA governments.
The latest infrastructure projects will immensely contribute to the economic growth of the state. The pro-business stance of the Yogi government has boosted investor’s confidence in UP and recently, many multinationals like Ikea, Vivo, and Samsung made investments in the state. Under the able leadership of Yogi Aditynath, the rule of law prevails in the state and terms like corruption and Gunda Raj have become totally obsolete.
