Mayawati's grand project to build a Rs 25,000-crore, 850-km-long, eight-lane, access-controlled expressway along the banks of Ganga will adversely hit the viability of 200 km of the national Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) project.However, having already given the UP project the go-ahead, the Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways can do little but count on the massive land acquisition issues expected to derail Mayawati’s expressway. The 200-km section of the GQ between Kanpur and Allahabad — along the NH-2 (Delhi to Kolkata) — will be hit by the Ganga Expressway, connecting Greater Noida to Ballia.The GQ project envisages four-lane connectivity between Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai, and under Phase V of the National Highways Development Programme (NHDP), the 5,700 km are to be six-laned. To be implemented on a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) toll-based model by private partners, the viability of the project is crucial to attract bids.The Road Transport Ministry recently told the Lok Sabha that the viability of a 200-km-long section would be affected by the Ganga Expressway and that this needs to carefully assessed. However, how this assessment will help when the ministry has already cleared Mayawati’s project is anyone’s guess.“We had taken up the issue with the Uttar Pradesh Government and pointed out that GQ viability matters a lot. However, we had to give the expressway project the go-ahead because it is essentially a state project, to be developed by them at their own cost. we cannot deny them infrastructure upgradation. However, the viability of sections of the NH-2 is bound to be affected, and we will probably have to put that in a clause in the bids when they are invited,” said a senior official from the ministry. But, sources inside the ministry say, they have a feeling that the Expressway won’t be taking off in a hurry.“The massive land acquisition required for that greenfield project across such a huge area is going to be no mean task. Already several political parties are against the idea and there is a general public discomfort with it. So, the fact is that our project viability will only be hit if the expressway does come through before ours,” add officials.The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) plans to six-lane the entire GQ length by 2015 to cater to expanding traffic volumes across National Highways and has started preparing Detailed Project Reports for the same. It has also started inviting bids for six-laning of some stretches.
