The 340-kilometer long Purvanchal Expressway will be opened for traffic in April this year, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said earlier today.
Adityanath, who was in Azamgarh to inspect the under-construction expressway, said it will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Purvanchal Expressway will link Ghazipur with Lucknow, the state capital, which in turn is linked to the National Capital Region through the Lucknow-Agra Expressway and Yamuna (Agra-Greater Noida) Expressway.
The expressway passes through seven other districts — Barabanki, Amethi, Sultanpur, Ayodhya, Ambedkarnagar, Azamgarh and Mau.
When the expressway is opened for traffic, “Uttar Pradesh will become the first state to have an expressway stretching across its entire length,” Awanish Awasthi, the Chief Executive Officer of the Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA), told Swarajya in December last year.
The Purvanchal Expressway is being linked to Gorakhpur, the seat of the Gorakhnath Peeth which Adityanath continues to head as Mahant, through the Gorakhpur Link Expressway.
Originating in Gorakhpur, the the 91-km long expressway will pass through the districts of Sant Kabir Nagar and Ambedkarnagar and link with the Purvanchal Expressway in Azamgarh, the Vidhan Sabha constituency of former Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav.
Uttar Pradesh is also working on two other expressways — 296-km-long Bundelkhand Expressway and 594-km-long Ganga Expressway.
The Bundelkhand Expressway and Gorakhpur Link Expressway are likely to be opened for traffic before the 2022 assembly election in Uttar Pradesh.