With Agra-Lucknow Expressway, Akhilesh burnishes his reputation

The expressway has established his credentials as a development-oriented new-generation leader and is expected to bring rich electoral dividends to the ruling party, writes Virendra Singh Rawat

Moments before the 302-km Agra-Lucknow Expressway was inaugurated by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and his father, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, on November 21, six Mirage and Sukhoi fighter jets burnt rubber on the country’s longest greenfield road infrastructure.

The access-controlled expressway has a 3.3-km-long stretch reinforced with concrete to offer landing and takeoff during exigencies. IAF proposes to develop similar patches on other expressways across the country.

Akhilesh, who has for long been pilloried for being half a chief minister and who recently had a showdown with his uncle, Shivpal Yadav, the completion of the expressway offers some redemption. The presence of both father and son was meant to put to rest speculation that all was not well between them. Yadav Sr., who turned 78 the following day, could be seen basking in the adulation.

 

Speaking on the occasion, Akhilesh claimed the expressway would spur economic activity along its route and also pave the way for his party to regain power in the 2017 UP polls.

Akhilesh, who has had little to show by way of new infrastructure projects in the four-and-a-half years that he has been chief minister, apart from the Lucknow Metro, has drawn flak for his handling of communal riots in the state. 

The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, his principle rivals in the upcoming elections, are both upbeat. Akhilesh needed to burnish his reputation — and fast. 

The Rs 15,000-crore expressway, connecting Lucknow to Agra, and further to Delhi via the 165-km-long Yamuna Expressway, has been Akhilesh’s flagship project. It has been deftly marketed in the media, both traditional and social, to establish his credentials as a development-oriented new-generation leader.

Though Uttar Pradesh has the reputation of being a laggard in project execution, the expressway has been built in a record 23 months, although it would be another four to six weeks before it is thrown open to public as some civil work, including underpass and bridges, are yet to be completed. The deadline for it was October 2016.

Land acquisition

It took more than just the unflinching support of Akhilesh throughout its project life for the expressway to come up in record time. A seamless land acquisition policy contributed immensely towards this breakneck speed.

Against the norm of invoking the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, for such a mega infra project, the Akhilesh dispensation instead embraced ‘mutual agreement’ and enhanced compensation to get land.

Thus, it was easy for the authorities to acquire the almost 3,400 acres required for the project. The land owners were offered almost four times and two times the circle rate for land in rural and urban areas, respectively.

Consequently, UP Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) acquired about 2,800 acres from 30,456 farmers across 232 revenue villages falling along its alignment, apart from 300 acres taken from government departments. This collectively formed almost 92 per cent of the total land requirement.

The government had constituted rate fixation committees under the district magistrates to arrive at mutually agreeable rates. The land owners received compensation based on the location of their land. They were additionally compensated for permanent structures and standing crops. As a result, UPEIDA faced no major irritants in getting the land parcels.

However, the state took recourse to the Act for acquiring land where mutual agreement could not fructify. About 160 acres were acquired in this manner and land owners were paid rates matching with mutual agreement.

The expressway cuts across 10 districts: Agra, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Etawah, Auraiya, Kannauj, Kanpur City, Unnao, Hardoi and Lucknow.

To ensure speedy completion, the project was divided into five packages and each was awarded to separate companies for the civil work. PNC Infratech was awarded Agra-Firozabad, Afcons Infrastructure was awarded Firozabad-Etawah and Kannauj-Unnao, Nagarjuna Construction Company was given Etawah-Kannauj and L&T was awarded Unnao-Lucknow.

Integrated project

The expressway was conceptualised as an integrated project, connecting farms and industrial centres to large cities. Four major growth centres have been identified along the expressway: Glass City (Firozabad), Development City (near Karhal/Saifai), Perfume City (near Kannauj) and Malihabad (food processing/packaging & marketing industry).

The government has also planned to develop agricultural mandis to spur the regional economy by providing faster transport to agricultural produce and handicrafts. The region is known for dairy, potato, fruit and grain production.

Since the expressway runs through the pocket boroughs of the ruling party and the Yadav clan, it received Akhilesh’s undivided attention. 

Initially, the expressway was estimated to cost nearly Rs 10,000 crore under public private partnership (PPP). However, it failed to attract companies due to the prevailing economic condition and credit squeeze.

Making amends, Akhilesh decided to fund the project through the state’s coffers. On November 23, 2014, Mulayam laid its foundation at Akhilesh’s residence in Lucknow. However, Mulayam obliged only after the time line of the project completion was squeezed to 22 months from the initial period of 30 months.

Electoral dividend

In the run up to the 2017 polls, the project is expected to bring rich electoral dividends to the ruling party. The land owners have been lucratively paid and their adjoining lands have also appreciated in value.

“The project has elevated the stature of Akhilesh both in the ruling party and in the eyes of the electorate as a leader who fulfills promises and stands up for his convictions. He is most likely to gain immensely from the project in the next polls, not only in the regions touched by the expressway, but in other parts of the state too,” political analyst Sudhir Panwar says.

Nonetheless, skeptics juxtapose the project with Yamuna Expressway which has failed to become a profitable venture for the concessionaire, the Jaypee group.

A major reason for the Yamuna Expressway to not be able to  live up to expectations was that the Jaypee group fell out of favourwith the ruling dispensation once the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party, under whose tenure it was conceptualised and completed, got voted out of power in 2012. 

But the Agra-Lucknow Expressway, once fully operational, is likely to have a cascading effect on Yamuna Expressway as well, since the two roads would connect Lucknow to Delhi. At present, mostly tourists commute over the Yamuna Expressway and it is still under-utilised.

‘Double the speed, triple the economy’

In good measure, the expressway embodies Akhilesh’s oft-repeated motto of ‘double the speed, triple the economy’ to underline his thrust on roads and expressways as imperative for speedier economic development.

The importance of the Agra-Lucknow Expressway can be gauged from the fact that Akhilesh’s arch rival, Mayawati, has accused him of renaming and repackaging projects which were initially conceptualised during her tenure. She prominently lists the expressway and Lucknow Metro to buttress her point. During her regime (2007-12), Mayawati apart from the Yamuna Expressway had proposed another mega project named Ganga Expressway, which was estimated to cost nearly Rs 30,000 crore.

The proposed 1,047-km expressway was awarded to the Jaypee group. However, the project soon ran into trouble after the state government notified villages for land acquisition. The work on the proposed project came to a halt in May 2009, when the Allahabad High Court asked the state to secure clearance from the Central environment ministry. The Samajwadi Party, then in opposition, had opposed the project tooth and nail.

Meanwhile, Akhilesh has now mooted another mega road project: Lucknow-Ballia Purvanchal Expressway to connect the state’s impoverished eastern region with Lucknow and onward connectivity to Delhi via the Agra-Lucknow Expressway and Yamuna Expressway.

The proposed 350-km long expressway is estimated to cost Rs 18,000 crore and the government has decided to adopt its tested mutual agreement route to acquire land for the project.