On 27th December 2021, the Union ministry of road transport & Highway shared the news that Rs 1,935 crore has been assigned to construct the Lucknow-Kanpur expressway. Nitin Gadkari, the union minister, announced the same via his official Twitter handle.
This initiative of constructing a 63km long Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway has furthered its step, with the annual budget for 2022-23 coming in. The officials will send a Detailed Project Report (DPR) to the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways for approval; the process will take approximately three months. The consultant company about to undertake the construction has also been selected, and the logistics for the same can be expected to be completed within this month.
Ideally, the proposed Expressway will be four-lane, helping to reduce the travel time from 2hours to approximately 55 minutes. This route, once active, will be utilized by 25000 commuters daily. The reduction in travel time will also help increase commercial activities throughout the region.
The proposed Expressway’s beginning point will be Amausi airport, further connecting to the proposed Kanpur ring road from Unnao.
As per the updates, 13km under this Expressway will be an elevated road, starting from Amausi airport until Bunni in Unnao.
The linkway will consist of six flyovers, thirty-eight underpasses, one railway over bridge, and three vital bridges.
The officials of Setu Nigam will join the consultant officers of NH PWD and PWD to survey the construction of the Expressway so that if the ramp and Ganga Link Expressway is built, then there is no problem in connecting it to this elevated road near Zarib Chowki.
As per the plan, a six-lane elevated road from Polytechnic Chauraha to Ramadevi on GT Road had to be built. However, post the survey, it was found that sufficient space isn’t available for the construction of six lanes at various locations. This is why the people involved in constructing the Expressway decided to make an elevated road from Gol Chauraha to Ramadevi, and its width was reduced from six to four lanes.
This 13km elevated road will initially be constructed by NHAI and would later be undertaken by UP Expressways Industrial Development Authority; the deadline for the construction of the same has been kept 2024.
NH PWD sent the proposed estimated one thousand crore rupees to the ministry; the ministry approved the assessment before the election notification was issued.
Minister of Road Transport and Highways of India, Mr Nitin Gadkari, laid the foundation stone in Lucknow. Among the unique feature of the project is that it will be built on a single pillar, due to which no obstacle will be caused, and the travel will continue even under the elevated road.
According to the NHPWD official, with the construction of the Expressway, the jam on the crossing on GT Road will come to an end.
As per the National Highways Authority of India project manager, NN Giri, a total of 70% of work-related land acquisition has been completed, and it would take an estimated time of 2 years for the construction.
Edited by- Subbuthai Padma
Published by- Radhika Nayak
