UP borrows Rs 7,000 crore for Bundelkhand Expressway

Virendra Singh Rawat

Lucknow / Mar 17, 2021

The Uttar Pradesh government has borrowed bank loans totalling Rs 7,000 crore for its flagship 296 km Bundelkhand Expressway project.

The mega project is estimated to cost Rs 15,000 crore, and traverse seven districts viz. Chitrakoot, Banda, Mahoba, Hamirpur, Jalaun, Auraiya and Etawah. 

According to nodal agency UP Expressway Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) CEO Awanish Kumar Awasthi, so far eight commercial banks had sanctioned loans worth almost Rs 7,000 crore, of which Rs 2,900 crore had already been invested in the ongoing civil works.

Last year, the state government had awarded six packages of Bundelkhand Expressway to successful bidders viz. Apco Infratech, Ashoka Buildcon, Gawar Construction and Dilip Buildcon. So far, the companies had completed about 48 per cent of the ground work.

The big infra project will connect the arid Bundelkhand region with the national capital region (NCR) via Agra-Lucknow and Yamuna expressways. The project would commence at Bharatkoop near Jhansi-Allahabad National Highway (NH) 35 in Chitrakoot district and terminate at village Kudrail, Etawah on Agra-Lucknow Expressway.

Meanwhile, the state has raised more than Rs 20,000 crore for various expressway projects in UP viz. 340 km Purvanchal Expressway, 296 km Bundelkhand Expressway, 91 km Gorakhpur Link Expressway and 628 km Ganga Expressway with total projected investment of nearly Rs 80,000 crore.

The work on these projects had come to a standstill during the initial weeks of Covid-19 lockdown imposed in March 2020. However, the work gradually resumed April onwards from the non-containment zones.

Of the total loans, more than Rs 11,000 crore have been borrowed for Purvanchal Expressway, which will link the backward Eastern UP districts with Central UP, thus offering faster connectivity to the NCR via existing expressways.