UP hastens country's costliest e-way project

The Lucknow-Ghazipur expressway project, which is going to be the costlier road project in the country, has been placed on the fast track. The mega highway project will be built at a cost of about Rs. 25,000 crore as such it will surpass the per-km cost incurred by the erstwhile India's longest six-lane Agra to Lucknow expressway. The 353 km Poorvanchal Expressway from Lucknow to Ghazipur is being pegged at Rs.70 crore per km as compared with the Rs.50 crore per km cost of the 302 ` km Agra-Lucknow Expressway, said official sources claiming that higher land acquisition costs are a factor for high cost. Nearly Rs. 2,900 crore was spent on acquiring land for the Agra-Lucknow Expressway but Rs. 7,058 crore would be needed to be spent on land acquisition for the new expressway. The state government will save some money by outsourcing “wayside amenities“ to private parties through public-private-participation (PPP) and asked telecom companies to lay optical fibre alongside the expressway for Wi-Fi services.