The Ganga Expressway

Bits and pieces of information available on the Ganga Expressway,Mayawati's Dream Road project....

UP Chief Minister Mayawati has announced Rs 40,000 crore Ganga Expressway from Ballia to Noida on the left bank of the river Ganga. The Cabinet on the 5th of September 2007 gave approval to the 1000 kms long expressway project that is likely to be completed within three years. The central government has already given environmental clearance and the process for the appointment of consultants was underway. The highway project would connect eastern and western UP and it would prove a boon for Poorvanchal. It would also have seven link expressways connecting every region of the state with the main road.Mayawati added the government would invite private investors to take up the eight-lane expressway. Since it is along the banks of river Ganga, the irrigation department headed by minister Nasimuddin Siddique would be the main government agency. Conceived in private sector the government would only be a facilitator.The project would also help in controlling the perennial problem of flood and land erosion.The farmers would be able to quickly transport perishable farm products to the market.It would be a toll road but the viability of the project with such a huge investment could not be only on the basis of toll and the investors would be allowed to develop industrial and commercial hubs and residential colonies along with route. The expressway would run 3 to 5 kms away from the river and irrigation department would provide the land. Ruling out the possibility of any major displacement of people, Singh said the investors would also acquire land under the project. By January 2008 the chief minister would lay foundation of the project, he said and added the techno-economic feasibility report would be available within the next few months. He said the original cost of the expressway would be Rs 26000 crore and the remaining Rs 14000 crore expenditure would be on other infrastructure development. The seven link ways would however be developed in the future, the chief minister said. Ganga Expressway would pass through Gautam Buddha Nagar, Bulandshahr, Badaun, Shahjehanpur, Fatehgarh, Farrukhabad, Hardoi, Unnao, Rae Bareli, Pratapgarh, Allahabad, Sant Ravidasnagar, Mirzapur, Varanasi, Ghazipur and Ballia.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati laid the foundation for the Ballia-Noida Ganga Expressway Project on 17th January 2008, which was her 52nd birthday. At a press conference, Ms. Mayawati described the expressway as the biggest infrastructure project in the country, and said it would give a fillip to the development of the backward regions on the left bank of the Ganga. The project would benefit entrepreneurs, traders and people in the rural areas..
Mostly infertile and barren land would be acquired.

The construction of the expressway is going to be done under a Public-Private partnership model. The UP government has accepted bids from various infrastructure companies. The Uttar Pradesh government has awarded the controversial Rs 30,000 crore Ganga Expressway contract to Jaypee Infratech Pvt. Ltd even as one of the bidders is considering a legal challenge. The company with the winning bid will be given a 35 year period to extract toll.The project is being developed under consultancy from SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd and the Indian Railways’ consultancy firm RITES. The construction is anticipated to be started by April 2008.

The 1,000-km road project has been billed as India’s biggest infrastructure initiative so far by any state government, trumpeted since September last year as ‘Uttar Pradesh’s Network of Prosperity’. As expected, the project has been awarded to Mayawati’s favourite Jaya Prakash Associates (JPAL) which had submitted the lowest bid at Rs 29,355 crore.

Mayawati, says her strategist and Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh, had visualised the project three years ago which was prompted by the plight of the farmers living on the flood-devastated northern banks of the Ganga. With a G.T. Road, built in the 16th century by Sher Shah Suri, feeding the right banks of the Ganga, she felt the large backward region on the left The chief minister clarified that builders would require only 30,000 acre of “infertile and wasteland” to set up “investment regions” along the expressway in lieu of huge capital investment. banks would get the opportunity of joining the mainstream of development with an expressway. Of this, 20,000 acre would be acquired in Etah and 10,000 acre in Meja tehsil of Allahabad. The industries to be set up in these investment regions would transform the area and spawn direct and indirect employment for three lakh people in about 500 large and 7,000 medium and small-scale units.