Over 1,300 kilometers of expressways are speeding up growth in Uttar Pradesh

Veer Singh, a farmer from village Pipri in Banda, Bundelkhand, spells out some numbers. "In production of food crops, the per bigha margin is between Rs 20,000 and Rs 25,000 but if you grow horticultural crops like potatoes, one bigha can accommodate between 70 and 100 quintals of it, which is a production of Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh. But after growing, taking them to faraway markets from Banda has always been an issue. We do not even have proper storage. Now, the turn to the Bundelkhand expressway is 2 km away. One can use their private vehicle and reach Delhi in 5-6 hours to market their produce. That is a benefit one can look forward to in the near future."

Singh, who has also given his land for the project, echoes the hope of many farmers in the backward Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh which is rich in minerals, but where agriculture is the mainstay due to an extended period of underdevelopment.

In the districts of Jalaun, Hamirpur, Banda, Etawah, Mahoba, Chitrakoot and Auraiya - through which the 296-km four-lane (expandable to six lanes), access-controlled Bundelkhand Expressway will pass through - more than 95% of the population does not have access to proper road and railway infrastructure.

With the expressway, expected to allow plying by December-end, travel time between the drought-prone region and the national capital Delhi will be reduced by at least 4.5 hours, in a significant bridging of the gap between two starkly different locales.

Moving north-east from Bundelkhand, in Umarpur village of Akbarpur, Ambedkarnagar - one of the districts through which the 341-km, six-lane, access-controlled Purvanchal Expressway, another mega project undertaken by the current UP government - will pass, Sunil Kumar is looking forward to accessing larger mandis through the e-way.

The Purvanchal Expressway will connect the remotest eastern districts of the state, starting from Ghazipur, to Lucknow via Azamgarh, Mau, Ayodhya, among others, and to Delhi via the existing Agra-Lucknow and Yamuna expressways. The expressway will likely be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi next month.

The project is expected to give a fillip to agricultural, industrial and tourist activities in the state, boosting employment opportunities apart from fostering development of industrial training institutes (ITIs), medical and educational institutes, new townships, smart cities, etc.

More than 1,300 km of expressways - Purvanchal, Bundelkhand, Gorakhpur Link and Ganga - are being developed in Uttar Pradesh that are expected to boost accessibility to the most obscure corners of the state to the state capital and further to the national capital, in a bid to transform them.

In the case of Bundelkhand Expressway, apart from the faster linkages to vast consumer markets, it is also expected to facilitate easy implementation of government schemes in the region as well as give access to the defence corridor- two out of the six nodes of it, Jhansi and Chitrakoot, fall in Bundelkhand with a view to transform the region and provide large-scale employment.

The UP Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) is already appointing a consultant to develop industrial corridors along the Purvanchal and Bundelkhand expressways. Connection of the Purvanchal Expressway with the Agra-Lucknow and Yamuna expressways will lay the ground for an industrial corridor extending from the extreme west end of the state to the extreme east.

Separately, a 91-km four-lane expressway from Azamgarh to Gorakhpur will link the latter to the Purvanchal e-way that does not pass through it.

According to officials, four villages have already been notified for conversion to industrial areas when the expressway comes up. A plastic park in Gorakhpur has also been given in-principle approval by the central government while the demand for industrial land is also on the rise in the district - the home turf of chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

The longest, 596-km Ganga Expressway, the construction of which is yet to begin, will connect Meerut to Prayagraj.

Navneet Sehgal, current additional chief secretary of information as well as the MSME department, who brought up the Agra-Lucknow Expressway as the CEO of UPEIDA in the Samajwadi Party government of 2012-17, sheds light on how five years into its existence, the expressway has improved things, giving an indication of what lies ahead.

"There has been a major impact. Transportation of agricultural products, milk, etc., from Lucknow and neighbouring areas to Delhi has become much easier. Frequency of people travelling from Lucknow to Delhi has increased drastically, so much so that the Agra-Lucknow Expressway earns more than Rs 1 crore as daily toll collections. These benefits will be extended with the Purvanchal and Bundelkhand expressways," he said.

In the long run, says Birendra Raturi, international director of SR Asia, the expressways will also raise the aspirations of people to move up the ladder. Some of the districts which will gain access are culturally very rich as well, and hence their potential could be well utilised by the tourism department. SR Asia is an international organisation dealing with sustainable development and has conducted a social impact assessment in many districts falling on the expressways.