These expressways have scripted a silent transformation in the state, once known for its poor road infrastructure.
No wonder, the state has earned the sobriquet of ‘Expressway Pradesh’.
Uttar Pradesh, the fourth largest state in the country, may be a laggard on social indicators like health and nutrition but the glistening new blacktop expressways that are coming up, crisscrossing the entire state has been the talk of the town.
The state currently has an operational network of six expressways, totalling 1,225 km of length.
Another 2,600 km of expressways are being built, making Uttar Pradesh the first state to have a network of 14 expressways.
Operational Expressways
When the Yogi Adityanath government came to power in 2017, the state had only three functional expressways: Noida-Greater Noida Expressway (25 km), the Yamuna Expressway from Greater Noida to Agra (165 km) and the Agra-Lucknow Expressway (302 km), connecting the Taj Mahal city to the state capital.
Since then, three new expressways running across its entire length have been operationalised.
These include Delhi-Meerut Expressway, the Purvanchal Expressway from Lucknow to Ghazipur and the 296-km-long Bundelkhand Expressway inaugurated on 16 July 2022.
Expressways Under Implementation
Eight more expressways totalling 2,600 km are under construction or in advance implementation stage in Uttar Pradesh.
This includes the state’s longest Ganga Expressway from Meerut to Prayagraj (594 km) whose foundation stone was laid by the Prime Minister in December 2021, the Gorakhpur Link Expressway, the Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway, the Ghaziabad-Kanpur Expressway, the Delhi-Dehradun Economic corridor, the Gorakhpur-Siliguri Expressway, the Ghazipur-Ballia-Manjhi Ghat Expressway and Varanasi-Kolkata Expressway.
Linking Expressways
Another game-changing endeavour is the plan to link various regions in the state with the exiting network of expressways through a link expressway.
As part of this, the state budget for financial year (FY) 2023-24 has set aside Rs 235 crore for the two e-ways — Jhansi Link Expressway and Chitrakoot Link Expressway. The two expressways will link the towns they will originate from — Jhansi and Chitrakoot Dham — with the Bundelkhand Expressway.
The linking of the expressways will bring the remotest and backward regions closer to not only state capital Lucknow but also Delhi and beyond, opening up markets and giving a big boost to socio-economic development in the region.
Apart from this, the Centre is also working on many greenfield projects to further expand the expressway network of Uttar Pradesh.
A list of planned expressways in the state is shown below:
The expressways have scripted a silent transformation in the state, once notorious for its decrepit road infrastructure. No wonder, the state has earned the sobriquet of ‘Expressway Pradesh’.