Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday announced one more flyover and two railway overbridges to improve the traffic movement in the city and on its outskirts. He added that by 2024 end, projects worth Rs 5 lakh crore will be commissioned in the state.
Gadkari, along with defence minister Rajnath Singh and CM Yogi Adityanath, was present at the inauguration of the Madiaon-IIM Crossing flyover on Monday. He also inaugurated 49 projects worth Rs 161 crore and laid the foundation of projects worth Rs 313 crore for the city. He said a new flyover will be built at Engineering College Crossing for direct connectivity to those heading towards Sitapur Road. One new railway overbridge will be built in Sidhauli, which will ease movement towards Naimisharanya.
Gadkari said another ROB will be built on the busy Gosainganj-Bani-Mohan route. He said the Centre has already allocated Rs 3,300 crore to bolster road connectivity in Uttar Pradesh. Of this Rs 80 crore was spent to build the Madiaon-IIM Crossing flyover while Rs 3,260 crore is being used for the construction of Aligarh-Kanpur highway.
Gadkari said that he would come back again in October to inaugurate the Outer Ring Road, to be constructed by the NHAI. “There were some issues in one package. We have changed the contractor,” he said.
“The 63-km Green Expressway between Lucknow and Kanpur will also be ready before 2025. The Rs 5,000-cr project between Shukla Ganj and Lucknow’s Outer Ring Road will reduce the travel time between the two cities to just 30 minutes,” he added. “As per the advice of Yogiji, we are also starting construction of a six-lane expressway between Gorakhpur and Siliguri.
Another expressway is being constructed between Gorakhpur and Shamli. It will connect Delhi-Meerut expressway with Gorakhpur-Siliguri Expressway,” Gadkari said, adding “besides, another proposed expressway between Varanasi and Kolkata would reduce the travel time between the two cities to just seven hours.”
He also announced that the Delhi-Dehradun Expressway will be inaugurated in September. Gadkari asserted that Lucknow has been significant since the Ramayan era. This city is named after Lakshman, the brother of Lord Ram. “For the development of UP, Yogiji provided a solid vision. I told him that I had been talking about ethanol since 2004. Not only will ethanol from the UP be used to power vehicles in the future, but also the world’s airplanes,” he added.
Praising the efforts of the Yogi government in improving law and order situation, Gadkari pointed out that apart from security, UP has succeeded in providing four key elements, good roads, good power supply, good infrastructure and good communication, to the investors. In a message to UP farmers, Gadkari said that diversification of agriculture to produce energy (biofuel) is the need of the hour to improve their income.
The Centre is trying to evaluate if biofuel (ethanol) could be used as a substitute for aviation fuel or if it could be used through mixing it with the aviation fuel.