“The environmental clearance from the Environment Ministry is almost through and will be given to us in two days. The project is sure to bring down travel time from Delhi to Varanasi from over 19 hours to less than 10 hours when ready,” said a highly placed official in the UP government.

The Rs 25,000-crore corridor will cover some 850 km, starting from Greater Noida, intersecting on its way high-density cities Bulandshahar, Badaun, Shahjahanpur, Unnao, Pratapgarh, Allahabad and Varanasi before ending at Ghazipur. Link roads will connect the expressway with Farrukhabad, Lucknow and Mirzapur.

The expressway, will be built “as far as possible” upon bunds (embankments) along the left bank of the Ganga to “minimize, check the problem of floods”.

“We have started the tendering process with calls for consultancy services and creation of a SPV (special purpose vehicle),” a senior official said.

The UP PWD and Irrigation department will develop the final alignment plan and the Infrastructure Development department will call for detailed feasibility studies, environmental, cost and technical assessments of constructing an expressway along the river.

To be executed on Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) basis, this will be one of the first big-ticket projects UP will be opting for on this model.

The Mayawati government has already invited Expressions of Interest (EoI) for creation of the Project Development Special Purpose Vehicle (PDSPV) to implement the project. To “reduce the time span” for studies prior to selection of developers, the UP government has integrally invited the EoI and Request for Proposal (RPF).

The Pradeshiya Industrial and Investment Corporation of Uttar Pradesh Ltd (PICUP) will partner the PDSPV. A project development fund of Rs 20 crore will be created with contributions from PICUP and the Project Development Consultant Partner.

To ensure profitability of the project, the selected private developer will also get rights to property development, real estate, industrial parks. While state owned land will be transferred to the developer as per state rules for private investment, the remainder of the required land will have to be acquired by the developer at his own cost.