The 92-km-long Gorakhpur Link Expressway, that connects the city with Purvanchal Expressway, will soon be thrown open for public. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had in February set a deadline of December for the completion of Gorakhpur Link Expressway. The project, work for which commenced in February 2020, will cost Rs 5,877 crore, including the cost of land.
So far, more than 62 per cent of the construction work has been completed. The expressway, once complete, will ensure hassle-free movement of vehicular traffic from Gorakhpur to Lucknow, Agra and Delhi.
While clearing and grubbing work is completed, activities related to civil work, including granular sub-base (GSB), wet mix macadam (WMM) and dense bituminous macadam (DBM), are currently underway on the main carriageway.
The four-lane (expandable to six lanes) expressway begins at Jaitpur on NH-27 in Gorakhpur district and links with the Purvanchal Expressway near Salarpur in Azamgarh district. The access-controlled expressway spans across four districts — Gorakhpur, Sant Kabir Nagar, Ambedkar Nagar, and Azamgarh.
Uttar Pradesh Expressway Development Authority (UPEIDA), the nodal agency, is executing this project in engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) mode. The project has been divided into two packages for implementation. While one company is developing the 47-km-long package-1 of the project, package-2 with a length of 43.03 km is being built by another company. As part of the expressway, two toll plazas, three ramp plazas, seven flyovers, 16 vehicular underpasses, 50 light vehicular underpasses, 35 pedestrian underpasses, seven major bridges, 27 minor bridges and 389 culverts are also being constructed. The Gorakhpur Link Expressway will also be linked to Varanasi through a separate link road, a UPEIDA spokesperson said.
The expressway is expected to be helpful as an industrial corridor to connect various production units. Keeping this in mind, the latest budget has made an allocation of Rs 200 crore for the Industrial Corridor along the Gorakhpur-link Expressway.
Gorakhpur, known for its handloom and terracotta craft, is on a transformational journey. The city, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s hometown located in the north-eastern part of Uttar Pradesh, has received special attention in infrastructure development.
Apart from Gorakhpur Link Expressway, the Central government has granted its approval to a Greenfield Expressway from Gorakhpur to Siliguri in West Bengal.
The six-lane 520-km-long Greenfield Expressway will run from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh to Siliguri in West Bengal via north Bihar. Around 85 km of the expressway will pass through Gorakhpur, Deoria and Kushinagar districts in Uttar Pradesh before entering Bihar where it will run for 416 kms and end in West Bengal after covering a length of 19 kms. Being developed at a cost of Rs 25,000 crore, it will provide a direct link for the outbound traffic from north-east region towards northern India, including the national capital, Punjab and Haryana.
