The clogging of lucknow-Kanpur highway could a thing of passé as National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has decided to broaden the present highway to eight lane in next three years. “The NHAI had decided to convert lucknow-Kanpur highway to eight lane access control expressway. This is done to remove traffic congestion,” Union Surface Transport minister Nitin Gadkari told reporters here on Tuesday.
“The detailed project reports (DPRs) of the lucknow-Kanpur highway would be completed within six months time. The work will start by the end of this year. The cost of the project would be around Rs 10,000 crore,” he said. Once complete, the travel time between the two cities would be just 30-40 minutes, he said. Gadkari said on the request of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav NHAI will also broaden Aligarh-Kanpur highway to six lane. The Union minister said that work for the outer ring road would also start this year as the DPRs is almost complete and it will be submitted next month.
“The land acquisition work for the lucknow outer ring road would start within a month time. The project will cost around Rs 11,000 crore,” he said adding that this road would be connected with Meerut-Delhi Dasna road.
“This would be eight lane road and have walls on both sides. The commuters will be able to drive their cars at speed of 170 km covering distance between lucknow and Delhi within 3 hours,” he said.
The minister also announced construction of four-lane Gorakhpur-Varanasi road at the cost of Rs 2747 crore. “We want to convert two lane roads to four lanes and four lanes to eight lanes because we believe that 80 per cent of the traffic will move to highways,” he said. “The need of the hour is to have broad roads because over 5 lakh accidents take place every year in which around 2 lakh people lose their lives,” he said.
Gadkari also said that his department will spend over Rs 6000 crore to construct 1200 km long highway to connect religious places like Saharanpur, Varanasi, Chitrakoot and Mathura. “Work on lucknow-Sultanpur, lucknow-Rae Bareli, Meerut-Bulandshahr, Rae Bareli-Jaunpur has begun and it will be completed by this year end,” he said. Minister also ruled out any move to waive tolls on the highway. He said from April this year, 360 toll plazas of the country would be converted to e-toll. “The commuters will zip pass these plazas as these e-tolls would be connected with banks and the money would be directly deducted from the account of the commuter,” he said. Gadkari said that stickers would be put on the windscreen of the vehicles for e-toll. “To avail good road and facilities people have to pay toll and it cannot be waived off,” he said.