Bundelkhand E-Way Lies at the Heart of UP's Development, What’s Next Stop? News18 Brings Exclusive Details

“Chaliye kisi CM ne toh Bundelkhand ke baare mein bhi socha (Thank God! one CM finally thought about Bundelkhand too)” ? sitting on a charpoy under a banyan tree in his village deep in the Bundelkhand region, Dharmendra Dwivedi points to the new Bundelkhand Expressway that can be seen from his village.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the 296-km long expressway from Etawah to Chitrakoot on July 16. News18 travelled on the Expressway over two days this week. “The PM laid the foundation stone in a leap year on February 29, 2020, and we have leaped forward to build it in records time within just 29 months, and by saving nearly Rs 1,200 crore in cost,” Awanish K Awasthi, CEO of UP Expressways and Industrial Development Authority told News18 in an interview in Lucknow.

More than being a four-lane Expressway, it is more important to know where this road is going to ? one of the remotest and moribund regions of the country, which was once infamous for women trudging for miles to fetch drinking water. The ‘Har Ghar Jal’ scheme is bringing some change to that situation in Bundelkhand villages but road connectivity was still an issue. The new e-way makes it possible to reach Chitrakoot from Delhi in just seven hours.

Going the Extra Mile

Travelling about 300 km from Greater Noida through the Yamuna Expressway and Agra-Lucknow Expressway, one comes to the point from where the new Bundelkhand Expressway starts near Etawah, branching out of the Agra-Lucknow Expressway at the 133 km point. This interchange was not fully functional yet when News18 visited on Tuesday but officials say it very soon will be.

The four-lane Expressway is expandable to six-lane in the future, and one can travel through the district of Auriya from Etawah and reach Orai in Jalaun about 120 km away where a big tent has been erected next to the Expressway for the PM’s function on July 16. Hectic activity was going on to give finishing touches to the interchange where commuters can turn towards Kanpur.

Travel ahead towards Hamirpur on the expressway designed for speed up to 100 km/hour and one finds villagers high on hope that the expressway will bring in prosperity. “Lots of development will come. We can now sell our produce elsewhere, even take it to Delhi. The best green peas are grown here, but we are forced to sell it nearby as road connectivity was poor,” Amod Kumar says.

A youngster, Siddharth Dwivedi, says the real deal could be the fillip to tourism and industries that will come up and create jobs in the region. His father Dharmendra Dwivedi says the direct connectivity to Delhi for Bundelkhand is a game-changer. “Ab Delhi Door Nahi…yeh sabse bada baat hai (Now, Delhi is not that far and that is the biggest thing),” Dharmendra Dwivedi adds.

In Lucknow, UPEIDA CEO Awasthi told News18 that farmers willingly provided land to the government for the project and UP has a transparent policy of land acquisition under which four times the cost of the land is paid to farmers directly in their bank accounts. “We could acquire the land within six months. The backbone of the expressway will ensure that this whole area gets opened up for development in the long run. There is an airport coming up in Chitrakoot too and two industrial corridors are proposed in Jalaun and Banda on the e-way,” Awasthi says.

The Bundelkhand expressway was conceived as Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had the vision that Bundelkhand should have a world-class infrastructure, he says. “PM declared a defence corridor in the region so the CM said we must have an expressway network. This new expressway leads up to the Agra-Lucknow expressway, connecting these districts to Delhi. There will be tourism, solar parks, industries and a special focus on the defence corridor,” Awasthi says.

Further travel on the expressway throws up another important feature ? safety. The expressway has crash barriers on both sides of the middle median, light reflectors and illumination on all structures like underpasses and bridges of all kinds unlike the Agra-Lucknow expressway — thereby increasing road safety and reducing the chances of collisions and vehicles overturning. The four-stage crash barriers ensure stray animals don’t come on the road. “Safety audit of Bundelkhand Expressway was done at the design stage itself, so it is a very safe expressway,” Awasthi says.

Expressway Pradesh ? the Idea

The Bundelkhand Expressway will be the sixth expressway to be operational in the state, taking the total expressway network in the state to over 1,200 km. Over 1,900 km of seven more expressways will be coming up in the state in the next four years. So why is Uttar Pradesh so high on expressway construction now?

“A need was considered to remove the backwardness in Purvanchal and hence an expressway was built there. Lucknow is now connected to Ghazipur, and Purvanchal got integrated with main frame of the state with that expressway. Now, Bundelkhand is getting integrated with main frame of the state,” Awasthi says.

The next big project now will be the UP’s longest Ganga Expressway, a nearly 600-km long expressway from Meerut to Prayagraj whose foundation stone was laid by PM earlier this year. “When the Kumbh was last held in Prayagraj, the Cabinet held there declared the Ganga Expressway project. Work will start very soon and we are hopeful that it will be ready by the next Kumbh in 2025,” Awasthi told News18.

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