Lucknow: Nearly two lakh trees in forest land have to be felled for the UP government’s Ganga Expressway. The much-talked-about project has got an initial go-ahead from an environment ministry committee despite concerns over the number of trees which has to be cut.
With a project cost of Rs 36,230 crore, the nearly 600 km-long expressway will pass through 12 districts along the river Ganga from Meerut to Prayagraj.
While it was recently accorded Term of References (ToR), the committee has sought clarifications on the need for a 120m land as Right of Way (RoW) for the six-lane expressway, the need for a mandatory public hearing and some alignment issues. ToR talks about the scope of work to be done.
The project was considered by the Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) of Infrastructure during its meeting last month. It will involve a diversion of approximately 121.47 hectares of forest land and the approval is pending with the forest division of the ministry. What distressed the EAC was that the project proponent, Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority, said the alignment will involve cutting around 1,80,793 trees and a majority (93%) of them in forest land.
In a bid to improve connectivity to the interior regions of Uttar Pradesh, the Ganga Expressway was conceived as an aspirational project. To be built in two phases, this will be one of the longest expressways when completed. The 602-km Ganga Expressway route will pass through a number of districts between Meerut and Prayagraj, via Varanasi. While the land acquisition for the project is underway and the construction is yet to begin, the Ganga Expressway is slated to be completed by 2025. To keep up with the timelines, the state government has not stopped work on the state’s expressway projects, even during the state-wide lockdown due to the second wave of COVID-19.
The Ganga Expressway project would require 6,556 hectares of land. This expressway would also serve as an emergency airstrip. On September 2, 2021, the state cabinet gave its nod for the Ganga Expressway, a greenfield, six-lane expressway project. the project will be implemented based on developing, build, finance, operate and transfer (DBFOT) under the public-private partnership model.
Around 96 per cent of the total required 7,386 hectares of land of 518-gram panchayats had been acquired for the Ganga Expressway project. More than half of the Ganga expressway will pass through western UP areas such as Meerut, Hapur, Amroha, Bulandshahr, Sambhal, Budaun and Shahjahanpur districts. The Ganga express highway will connect Eastern UP with western UP and the National Capital Region (NCR). The 602-km expressway will be constructed in two phases. Starting near Bijauli village in Meerut connecting up to Judapur Dandu village in Prayagraj, the Ganga Expressway will cover many districts, and link 519 villages.
The expressway will be expandable to an eight-lane expressway, with a maximum speed limit of 120 km per hour for vehicles. A 1-km bridge has been proposed along the expressway over river Ganga and another 720-metre bridge over river Ramganga. There will be a total of nine public convenience centres, 381 underpasses, 14 major bridges, 126 minor bridges, 929 culverts, 7 ROBs, 28 flyovers and 8 diamond interchanges along the expressway. Railway overbridges will have a width of 120 metres.
Two main toll plazas will be set up in Meerut and Prayagraj and there will be 15 ramp toll plazas along the Ganga Expressway route. About 18,55,000 saplings will be planted along the Ganga expressway route for environmental protection. Solar power will be utilised for producing energy on the land acquired for the project. The cost of the civil works is estimated to be Rs 22,125 crores while Rs 9,255 crores have been estimated for buying the land.