Centre clears Rs 10,000 cr worth road projects for UP

The Centre on Monday approved road projects worth Rs 10,000 crore for the construction and upgradation of various roads in Uttar Pradesh.

The projects, cleared during Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's meeting with Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, include upgradation of 73 state highways into national highways with a total length of 6,260 km. 

Adityanath told the media here that Gadkari also assured him of upgrading another 15 proposed state highways into national highways.

"It is the first time that such a large number of schemes amounting to Rs 10,000 crore have been cleared for Uttar Pradesh at one go," he said. 

The approved projects include a six-lane expressway to provide better connectivity with Bundelkhand.

"The six-lane expressway would connect Tirwa with Jhansi via Agra-Lucknow expressway," Adityanath said.

He added that a four-lane expressway to connect Jhansi with Allahabad via Chitrakoot would also be constructed.

Economically backward Western Uttar Pradesh and Bundelkhand would be brought on the path of development for the first time through these projects, the Chief Minister said.

For Allahabad where "Kumbh mela" takes place every 12 years -- the next scheduled for 2019 -- 76 km of ring road would be developed to augment road infrastructure, he said.

"We also reached consensus to build ring roads in main cities of Uttar Pradesh including Lucknow, Gorakhpur, Bareilly, Kanpur, Moradabad and Meerut."

"For Lucknow, seven elevated roads have been approved," the Chief Minister said.

During his visit to Delhi, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Minister of State for Power Piyush Goyal. 

He described the meetings as courtesy meetings during which he also discussed some development projects for his state.

During the meeting (with the Power Minister), "we discussed important issues like power generation and transmission and improvements in the supply of adequate power to the state", Adityanath wrote on Twitter. - IANS