GREATER NOIDA: After lying in cold storage for nearly five years, a proposed eight-lane Upper Ganga Canal Expressway (UGCE) in western Uttar Pradesh may finally see the light of day.
Proposed by the Mayawati government in 2010, the Samajwadi Party regime has decided to revive the project. Once in place, it will cut down travel time by road from NCR to the cities of Haridwar, Mussourie and Nainital considerably. Noida, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad andYEIDA areas would also get direct connectivity with Uttarakhand.
Officials said that Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) has already sent a fresh proposal to the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEF&CC), seeking environmental clearances for the project. The 148-km expressway flanking the right bank of the Upper Ganga Canal is proposed from Sanauta Bridge in Greater Noida to Purkazi on the Uttar Pradesh-Uttarakhand border with link expressway and service road.
According to UPEIDA officials, the proposed project is to pass through Bulandshahr, Gautam Budh Nagar (Greater Noida Phase-II), Ghaziabad, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar and Saharanpur districts of UP. The cost of the project was in 2010 estimated to be approximately Rs 8,000 crore. However, with the passage of time and related inflation, it is now estimated to come up at an additional cost of about Rs 3,000 crore.
“We have sent the fresh proposal to the Centre,” Navneet Sahgal, CEO of UPEIDA told TOI over the phone from Lucknow. “We have written to the director general of MoEF&CC regarding the diversion of 782.478 hectares of protected forest land and wildlife clearance for the proposed eight-lane access controlled expressway. We have asked the Centre to expedite environment-related clearances and ‘no objection certificates’ for construction of the project,” he added.
According to Sahgal, earlier objections raised by the MoEF&CC in 2012 regarding the e-way have been cleared by UPEIDA and the alignment has been amended taking into account a 10-km sensitive zone within location of national parks, sanctuaries, biosphere, reserves, migratory corridors of wild animals.
UPEIDA officials said that once in place, Delhi, GB Nagar, Ghaziabad, Bulandsahar, Hapur, Meerut, Baghpat, Muzaffarnagar, Shamli and Saharanpur would benefit immensely from the expressway. Noida, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad and YEIDA areas would also get direct connectivity with Uttarakhand. With the cutting down of travel time by road to areas between NCR and cities of Haridwar, Mussourie, and Nainital, officials said that the new expressway would provide a boost for tourism. Currently, travel time to these places takes about 7 to 8 hours.
“The expressway will form an integrated road network in the region for the commercial traffic which travels between the industrial, commercial and residential hubs of the region. The expressway will also boost the industrial and economic development in the region,” Sahgal said.
