NHAI expedites Rs 32,000-cr Gorakhpur-Siliguri e-way project

National Highways Authority of India has fast tracked the 520 km long four-lane Gorakhpur-Siliguri Expressway. Starting from UP, the expressway will go to West Bengal after crisscrossing nine districts of Bihar. It will pass through three districts of UP and enter Bihar, where it will pass through 9 districts of the state before entering West Bengal. The green-field expressway under Bharatmala Pariyojana (BMP) Phase 2 will run parallel to the Nepal border. It will cover 84.3 km in Uttar Pradesh, 416.2 km in Bihar, and 18.97 km in West Bengal. It will cover the distance in UP through Gorakhpur, Deoria and Kushinagar districts and in Bihar and will pass through West Champaran, East Champaran, Sheohar, Sitamarhi, Darbhanga, Madhubani, Supaul, Forbesganj and Kishanganj. After this, it will go through Darjeeling and finally Siliguri. Land acquisition work, which is currently in full swing in all the three states is also nearing completion and the project is expected to becompleted by 2025. Currently, there is no direct road connecting Gorakhpur and Siliguri due to which it takes people around 15 hours to reach Siliguri or vice versa, but the new expressway will drastically reduce travel time to about 6 hours.