UP: Yogi Government May Open Ganga Expressway A Year Before December 2025 Deadline As Preparation For Maha Kumbh Gathers Pace

The Uttar Pradesh government is working to complete the construction of the 594-km Ganga Expressway before its scheduled deadline so that it can be opened to the public before the next Maha Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj in January 2025, a report in the Indian Express says.

The Ganga Expressway is one of the largest expressway projects in the country, which will run through 12 districts of the state from Meerut to Prayagraj. It is being developed on a public-private partnership (PPP) model at an estimated cost of Rs 36,000 crore.

The state government is preparing to make the 2025 Maha Kumbh Mela a grand event and is putting in efforts to showcase it as such.

According to the report, the developers of the Ganga Expressway project, Adani Enterprises and IRB Infrastructure Developers, have been given financial incentives to complete the project by the end of 2024, a year ahead of the original deadline of December 2025.

The developers of the Ganga Expressway project have already completed 25 per cent of the "earthwork" in just five months since the commencement of the construction work. The earthwork refers to the initial stage of the project, which involves the scraping and grading of the patch to prepare it for further construction activities.

The foundation stone for the project was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in December 2021, just before the Assembly elections in the state.