Agra - Lucknow Expressway snippets

The Uttar Pradesh Public Private Partnership Monitoring Committee has finalised the alignment of the Agra-Lucknow Green-Field Eco-Friendly Expressway Project. Reviewing the progress of its implementation, infrastructure and industrial development commissioner, Anil K Gupta examined the draft concept report submitted by consultants Redicon India Pvt Ltd and approved the final alignment proposal of an approximately 270-km long six-lane (extendable to eight lanes) expressway starting from proposed Agra Ring Road close to Yamuna Expressway, passing through Fatehabad, Shikohabad, Saifai, NH-92 near Etawah, NH-91 near Kannauj, NH-25A near Malihabad, and finally culminating at Inner Ring Road in Lucknow.
According to the draft concept report, the consultants have proposed five toll plazas, eight interchanges with 7.5 metres service lane along the expressway and 80 under passes, 135 cattle passes and four public amenities. The draft concept report has also fixed a project execution time of three years.
The state government also asked the consultants to incorporate design parameters for a speed of 120 km/ hour on the proposed expressway. The committee also observed that it should be clearly specified in the concept report that the concessionaire will have to acquire land himself, while the state government will only facilitate the acquisition. Moreover, the final concept report will also include provision for optional annuity or toll based revenue models, setting up two fuel stations, linkages to existing industrial clusters of potato-based food processing in and near Agra, glasswork of Firozabad, Attar (perfume) industry of Kannauj and the leather industry in Kanpur. Gupta said, “The finalised alignment has been derived on the criteria of maximum utilisation of barren, waste and low cost land in the area. To make the expressway economically inclusive, small Mandis have been proposed, as they will benefit farmers, schooling facilities for their wards and medical-care facilities will be developed along with eco-friendly green belt and water bodies with a view to protect environment and rain harvesting.”
Gupta also said the consultants have been asked to include alternative bidding processes for selecting developers for the entire expressway as a single project or in small pockets of growth centres. “In addition, masterplans of cities along the alignment must also be synchronised with the expressway, so that, there is no hurdle in execution of project later on,” Gupta said.
The final comments on the project by UP Expressways Industrial Development Authority will be made available to the consultants by early September after which the final concept report will be accepted by the PPP Monitoring Committee.
Apart from reducing travel time between Agra and Lucknow to three hours from the present seven, the access-controlled expressway will help the swift transportation of perishable farm produce to bigger markets, apart from boosting tourism.
The six-lane expressway, that seeks to reduce the distance between the two cities from the existing 350 kilometres to 274 kilometres, will pass through Yadav-dominated belt comprising Etawah, Mainpuri and Kannauj districts.
Proposed to come up at an estimated cost of about Rs 9,800 crore, the project aims to reduce the travel time between Lucknow and Agra from 5 hours to 3.5 hours. The expressway will be ready by 2016.
Government may put in place the annuity-based system to decide on the toll that will be charged from commuters. Infrastructure and industrial development commissioner Anil Kumar Gupta said the system would ensure that the developer doesn’t quote arbitrary toll rates.
“The traffic volume will be ascertained every year and accordingly the toll rates will be decided,” Gupta said.
While reviewing the project during a presentation, UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said the expressway will help farmers to ship their produce far and wide.