Bundelkhand, July 13: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Uttar Pradesh on 16th July to inaugurate Bundelkhand Expressway. The event is organized at Kaitheri village in Orai tehsil of Jalaun district at around 11:30 AM.
The expressway, which stretches between Chitrakoot and Etawah, has been completed eight months ahead of schedule.
The government has been committed to enhancing connectivity across the country, a key feature of which has been the work towards improvement in road infrastructure.
A significant endeavor towards this was the laying of the foundation stone for the construction of the Bundelkhand Expressway by the Prime Minister on 29 February 2020.
The work on the Expressway has been completed within 28 months and it will now be inaugurated by the Prime Minister.
While laying the foundation stone in February 2020, Prime Minister Modi said that the project “will create thousands of jobs and connect the common people with facilities available in bigger cities”.
The 296 Km, four-lane expressway has been constructed at a cost of around Rs 14,850 crores, under the aegis of Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA), and can later be expanded up to six lanes as well.
The project is expected to give a fillip to connectivity in the state and boost economic activity.
It extends from NH-35 at Gonda village near Bharatkoop in Chitrakoot district to near Kudrail village in Etawah district, where it merges with the Agra-Lucknow expressway. It passes through seven districts, viz. Chitrakoot, Banda, Mahoba, Hamirpur, Jalaun, Auraiya and Etawah.
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The Bundelkhand expressway is expected to reduce travel time between Delhi and Chitrakoot to just six hours from the earlier 9-10 hours.
The Bundelkhand expressway is also crucial to the success of the upcoming Uttar Pradesh defense corridor project.
Work on an industrial corridor has also begun in the districts of Banda and Jalaun. The defense corridor project, worth Rs 20,000 crore, has been planned for over 5,071 hectares across the state’s western, central, and Bundelkhand regions.
Of the 13 expressways spanning 3,200 km in the state, six are operational while work is on in seven.
Industrial corridors are being built along highways and expressways. Airstrips are coming up for emergency use by the air force.
Along with improving connectivity in the region, the Bundelkhand Expressway will also give a major boost to economic development, resulting in the creation of thousands of jobs for the local people. Work on the creation of an industrial corridor in the Banda and Jalaun districts, next to the Expressway, has already been started.