With 95 per cent of work completed, the Purvanchal Expressway could be made available to the public by the end of next month.
Avanish Awasthi, Chief Executive Officer of the Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA), who carried out the spot inspection of the expressway on Sunday (25 July), had instructed officials to complete pending work at the earliest.
The 340-kilometre long 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 large state to have an expressway stretching across its entire length.
The Purvanchal Expressway is linked to Gorakhpur, home to Gorakhnath Peeth, which Adityanath continues to head as Mahant, through the Gorakhpur Link Expressway.
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 will likely be opened for traffic before the 2022 assembly election in Uttar Pradesh.
In addition to this, the six-lane expressway will also have a three-km long runway at Kudebhar in Sultanpur district for landing and take-off of fighter jets of the Indian Air Force during an emergency.