Modi to lay foundation of Purvanchal e’way
LUCKNOW: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to lay the foundation stone of country’s longest Purvanchal Expressway on May 26 in Azamgarh, the parliamentary constituency of Samajawadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav.
The event would coincide with completion of four years of BJPled NDA government at the Centre and is also being billed as beginning of the party’s campaign for Lok Sabha 2019. UP Expressway and Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) officials, the agency at the helm of the e-way project, however, said they were yet to receive an official communication about the PM’s programme. The 343-km-long expressway will provide seamless connectivity to nine districts by linking with the 302 km Agra-Lucknow Expressway and the 165 km Agra-Greater Noida Yamuna Expressway and give a boost to trade. Planned as a six-lane access-controlled expressway but expandable to eight lanes, the e-way would connect Lucknow to Ghazipur and pass through Barabanki, Sultanpur, Faizabad, Ambedkar Nagar, Azamgarh, Mau and Ghazipur districts. The e-way would be developed on the (EPC) mode of engineering, procurement and construction.
Around 12 companies have placed technical bids for the project. These include Reliance Infotech, Larsen & Toubro, NCC (the erstwhile Nagarjuna Construction Company), APCO Infratech, Gayatri Projects, Afcons Infrastructure, PNC Infratech, BSCPL Infrastructure (erstwhile B Seenaiah & Company Projects), Ashoka Buildcon, KNR Constructions, Oriental Structural Engineers and Sadbhav Engineering. All firms are to place their financial bids in June, with the selected bidders expected to start work in July.
On April 17, the state cabinet had okayed the Request for Proposal drafted by the project development consultant for selection of inviting bids and selection of developers. The state government would be spending ₹23,349 crore on building the project which would be ready by 2020.
Out of this, while ₹11,800 crore would be spent on construction, ₹6,500 crore would be the cost of the land acquired for the project . Majority of the funds required for the project would be secured by way of loan and several banks have already pledged and sanctioned money for the proposed e-way. The Vijaya Bank and the Indian Bank have already handed over sanction letter of ₹1,0000 crore each for the project to the UPEIDA chief executive officer Awanish Aawsthi for starting civil construction work.