The Uttar Pradesh government put the ambitious Ganga Expressway project on a fast track by approving the associated Request for Proposal (RFP) and Request for Qualification (RFQ) on Thursday.
Approval of RFP and RFQ documents of the Rs 36,230 crore-project was given by the Uttar Pradesh cabinet headed by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Lucknow on Thursday.
Besides, the state cabinet also gave green signal to Regulated Qualification Framework (RQF) and Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF) of the expressway and approved the project costing Rs 36,230 crore which includes Rs 22,125 crore for civil and construction works including goods and services tax (GST) and Rs 9,255 crore for purchase of land.
Briefing media persons in Lucknow, UP government spokesperson Sidharth Nath Singh said that the Ganga Expressway project was approved by the state government on November 26, 2020.
"This 594-km-long Meerut to Prayagraj Ganga Expressway will be the biggest expressway project in the country. The cabinet decided that the process of bidding for Ganga Expressway would be completed within 60 days. Almost 92.20 per cent land has been acquired for the project and an air strip will also be built on this six-lane expressway. The Ganga Expressway will be of six lanes, expandable to eight lanes and the project will be constructed in four packages. The cost of each package is between Rs 5,000 to Rs 5,800 crores. For this a concessionaire agreement of 30 years will be made. The expressway will be developed on DBFOT (Develop, Build, Finance, Operate and Transfer) model and the maximum speed limit of vehicles has been fixed at 120 km per hour. The cabinet gave a holistic approval to this proposal so that we need not take cabinet approval for minor things,” he said.
The Ganga Expressway is proposed from Meerut and will cross Hapur, Bulandshahr, Amroha, Sambhal, Budaun, Shahjahanpur, Hardoi, Unnao, Rae Bareli and Pratapgarh before culminating at Prayagraj and Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEDA) will be the nodal agency for overseeing its construction.
Singh said that during the meeting, the chief minister said that those places would be identified on Ganga Expressway where industrial clusters could be developed and public facilities would be developed at nine places on the expressway.