UP stretch of East-West corridor nearing completion

“Almost 90 per cent work has been done. Work on Lucknow-Faizabad sections has been completed by 98 per cent,” Srivastava added.

The parts that have been completed include Jhansi bypass,Bara to Orai,Kasi to Gorakhpur,Orai to Jhansi. Sources said that most of these stretches were completed last year and opened for traffic. The Lucknow-Ayodha part is also complete except the ROB near Safedabad crossing. NHAI officials said the construction of ROB is taking long because of high rail traffic on the route.

The East-West corridor was started in 1998 under the National Highways Development Programme (NHDP) to connect Silchar in Assam to Porbandar in Gujarat. The four-lane corridor passes through Gujarat,Rajasthan,Madhya Pradesh,UP,Bihar,West Bengal and Assam. The total length of the corridor is 3,300-km.

In UP,the corridor connects the districts including—Jhansi-Orai-Kanpur-Lucknow-Barabanki-Faizabad and Gorakhpur. The major hurdle,NHAI officials said,in executing the project was at first the delay in land acquisition and later the conditions stipulated by the state government for providing land strip for afforestation before allowing cutting of trees.

“All such issues have been sorted out and the project is going to be completed this year,” said an official of NHAI.

The 22-km Lucknow-bypass,also called Amar Shaheed Path,is likely to be completed by March. The 14-km stretch of the highway is open for traffic from Kanpur Road to Sultanpur Road. A two-km stretch between Chinhat trisection to Husandiyan crossing is also operational. Officials said that work on the remaining six-km stretch is at the last stage except the ROB in Gomti Nagar that could be completed by March.