Bank of India sanctions Rs 500 crore loan for Gorakhpur Link Expressway

Virendra Singh Rawat

Lucknow / Dec 6, 2020

Public lender Bank of India (BoI) today sanctioned a loan of Rs 500 crore for 91-km Gorakhpur Link Expressway, which is estimated to benefit a population of nearly 50 million in the Eastern UP region.

BoI is a constituent of a consortium of commercial banks, led by Punjab National Bank, who have greed to provide credit to the Rs 5,800 crore mega project. Other constituents are Uco Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, Union Bank of India and Canara Bank.

With fresh loan facility of Rs 500 crore by the BoI, the project’s nodal agency UP Expressway Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) has claimed to have raised a total of Rs 2,300 crore for the project.

The consortium has agreed to waive off the upfront and processing fee for the project, which is among the flagship infra projects of the Yogi Adityanath government.

According to UPEIDA CEO Awanish Kumar Awasthi, these funds would be utilised by the UPEIDA in the next three years. The 15 year loan repayment period would begin after a moratorium of three years in 48 equated quarterly installments.

Gorakhpur Link Expresway, spanning four districts viz. Gorakhpur, Sant Kabir Nagar, Ambedkar Nagar and Azamgarh, will primarily benefit Gorakhpur and the adjoining areas by providing a fast connectivity for public and movement of goods. It will also link them with another mega expressway project underway, 340 km Purvanchal Expressway, which is estimated to cost Rs 23,000 crore.

Meanwhile, the Authority has intensified the land acquisition drive to ensure the project is completed on time. Gorakhpur Link Expressway was divided into two packages and respectively awarded to private developers, Apco Infratech and Dilip Buildcon, for simultaneous construction.

Gorakhpur Link Expressway is the 5th greenfield expressway project in UP after Yamuna Expressway, Agra-Lucknow Expressway, Purvanchal Expressway and Bundelkhand Expressway.

Another mega project, 600 km Ganga Expressway estimated to cost more than Rs 36,000 crore, has also been proposed by the Adityanath government, for which the bidding process is likely to begin soon.

In the recent visit to his parliamentary constituency of Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had noted Uttar Pradesh was now reckoned as ‘Express Pradesh’ owing to the slew of mega expressway projects currently being developed.

Last month, the state cabinet had nominated SBI Capital Markets Limited for the financial advisory services to Ganga Expressway and approved the proposal to tap the foreign direct investment (FDI) route for raising funds for the ultra-mega project, which is said to be the largest access controlled expressway in the world on completion.

The Ganga Expressway will offer faster travel alongside river Ganga from Haridwar to Varanasi via Prayagraj (Allahabad), thus boosting socioeconomic development across UP and creating jobs. It will offer land connectivity link to the Haldia-Varanasi inland waterway transport to-and-fro Delhi and other interstate routes.