Virendra Singh Rawat / Lucknow
The flagship 595 km Ganga Expressway in Uttar Pradesh is targetted to be completed before 2025 Prayagraj ‘MahaKumbh’ Mela.
The Uttar Pradesh government has asked developers to complete the mega project by December 2024. Earlier, the infra project, which is estimated to cost nearly Rs 36,000 crore, was likely to be completed by the end of 2025.
An estimated 400 million pilgrims are estimated to congregate in Prayagraj (Allahabad) during the Mahakumbh Mela, which is among the world’s largest assemblies of people.
Recently, UP industrial development minister Nand Gopal Gupta Nandi directed officials to speed up the work on the Meerut-Prayagraj Ganga Expressway to complete the project by December 2024.
The expressway is a dream project of chief minister Yogi Adityanath and no slackness would be tolerated in this regard, he underlined.
He said the expressway would provide seamless travel to the devotees visiting the Mahakumbh Mela.
The greenfield expressway will facilitate faster passenger and cargo movements, and promote industrial corridors, agro marketing and tourism in UP.
The PPP project will traverse 12 districts viz. Meerut, Hapur, Bulandshahar, Amroha, Sambhal, Badaun, Shahjahanpur, Hardoi, Unnao, Rae Bareli, Pratapgarh and Prayagraj.
The access-controlled six lane (expandable to eight lanes) Ganga Expressway has been divided into four groups with three packages each, thus totalling 12 packages.
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The concessionaries Adani Enterprises and IRB Infra are respectively developing nine and three packages each of the expressway, which is being built under the Design Bid Finance Operate and Transfer (DBFOT) model.