Top infrastructure companies, including Reliance, Jaypee, Nagarjuna, GVK, IRB and Soma, have evinced an interest in the proposed 150-km expressway flanking the Upper Ganga Canal (UGC) in Uttar Pradesh.
The representatives of these companies have participated in two pre-bid meets held in New Delhi and Lucknow to seek additional information about the project. The final pre-bid meet is slated on February 22 in the national capital.
The eight-lane access controlled expressway is estimated to cost Rs 6,200 crore and the work is likely to begin in the first quarter of the next financial year after the bidding process is completed.
Besides, hydropower projects would be undertaken alongside to generate 32-Mw at a cost of Rs 336 crore.
“Since a part of the expressway is proposed near the Hastinapur Sanctuary near Meerut, the private developers raised apprehensions about the environmental clearance by the Centre in these pre-bid meets. These issues are being taken care of,” UP industrial development principal secretary V N Garg told Business Standard.
The expressway will be developed along the right bank of UGC starting from Greater Noida to the UP-Uttarakhand border near Purkazi. UP has also urged the Uttarakhand government to link national highway 58 with the proposed expressway.
UP Expressways Industrial Area Development Authority (Upeida) is the lead agency for this Design Built Finance Operate Transfer (DBFOT) project, while IL&FS Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (IIDC) is the consultant.
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The state irrigation department owns all the necessary land for the expressway, which would help in faster completion of the project.
The expressway would be on 35-year lease to the concessionaire, while the commercial land at strategic locations along the route would be on lease for 90 years.
The expressway is expected to boost the industrial and economic development in the region, while the farmers will find it easier to get their produce to the national capital.