Rush to inaugurate 'half-built' expressway sign of 'make-do' culture: Akhilesh

On the day Prime Mnister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Bundelkhand Expressway, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav accused the government of rushing to open the “half-complete” expressway and championing a “chaltaau” culture.

”The hurriedness in the inauguration of the half-complete Bundelkhand Expressway shows that its design is ‘chaltaau’ (make-do),” Akhilesh Yadav said in a tweet in Hindi on Saturday. “So, even with Defence Corridor near to it, the BJP government could not construct an airstrip like the one constructed on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway during the Samajwadi Party government,” he said.

The SP chief also tweeted a video along with his tweet. The foundation stone of the four-lane expressway, which will connect Chitrakoot with the Lucknow-Agra Expressway, was laid by Modi in February 2020.

The project took 28 months to complete, according to the government.

The 296-km expressway, constructed at a cost of around Rs 14,850 crore by the Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA), can later be expanded up to six lanes. Extending from National Highway (NH)-35 at Gonda village near Bharatkoop in Chitrakoot district to near Kudrail village in Etawah district, where it merges with the Agra-Lucknow expressway, the expressway passes through Chitrakoot, Banda, Mahoba, Hamirpur, Jalaun, Auraiya, and Etawah.

Along with improving connectivity in the region, the Bundelkhand Expressway is also expected to give a major boost to economic development and local job creation.

Work on the creation of an industrial corridor in Banda and Jalaun district, next to the expressway, has already been started.