By IANS
Lucknow : The 1,000-km Ganga Expressway will be completed in four years, the Uttar Pradesh government said Thursday as it formally announced giving the contract for the Rs.400 billion project to JP Associates.
“Having submitted the lowest tender in the bidding for the project, JP Associates will be entrusted with the task of building the Ganga Expressway from Ballia to Noida,” Industrial Development Commissioner Atul Kumar Gupta told a press conference here.
Explaining the modalities, he said, “JP Associates has been given nine months time to finalise the pre-construction formalities including land acquisition as also for the rehabilitation package for the dislocated population.
“The actual construction work should commence by the end of the year and would get completed within a record time frame of four years.”
The company would be subjected to severe penalties if it failed to maintain the prescribed time schedule, he pointed out.
Two foundation stones to be laid at the two ends of the eight-lane expressway were unveiled by Chief Minister Mayawati as part of her mega development agenda rolled out on her 52nd birthday on Jan 15.
The expressway was described as the biggest single infrastructure project undertaken in the country so far and seen as an engine of transformation of the state economy.
The Ganga Expressway would link the two far ends – eastern and western – of the state and thereby drastically cut down the commuting time between parts of Uttar Pradesh and national capital New Delhi.
Proposed to be made on the left bank of the Ganga river, it was expected to give rise to industrial and commercial hubs at several places along the route – a parallel to what Afghan ruler Sher Shah Suri did 600 years ago by building the Grand Trunk Road along the right bank of the river.