After a delay of several months and missing several deadlines, the much awaited Yamuna Expressway will be inaugurated by the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav through remote control at 11 am on Thursday. The chief minister will also hold a video conference from Lucknow. At the same time at Greater Noida, MP and Samajwadi Party National Secretary Ram Gopal Yadav will flag off a cavalcade of ten vehicles on the Expressway. The Expressway is expected to reduce the travel time from Delhi to Agra to less than two hours.
‘Parliamentarian Ram Gopal Yadav will flag off the first ten vehicles at the zero mile point of the Expressway at 11.00 am near Pari Chowk in Greater Noida,’ said M K S Sundaram, district magistrate of the Gautam Buddha Nagar. However, the Expressway would be formally opened for public only around 4 pm on Thursday. An official of the Jaypee Group, which has developed the project, claimed CCTVs have been installed at 5-km intervals, and that there will be a police post at every 25 km on the Expressway. Highway patrol vehicles will also be present on the Expressway around-the-clock. For medical emergencies, there are ambulances at every police post, in addition to a helicopter on stand-by at Jaypee Sports City.
‘The maximum speed limit has been fixed at 100 kmph for cars and 60 km for heavier vehicles. However, heavy vehicles like trucks will not be allowed to ply on the Expressway between 9 am to 9pm,’ said Kulveer Singh (OSD) of Yamuna Expressway Industrial Developmental Authority (YEIDA) and nodal officer of the Expressway.
Currently, tourists going to Agra use National Highway (NH) – 2. The travel time on this route is over four hours. However, the toll rates on the Expressway which were to be fixed by Tuesday had not been fixed till the Wednesday evening. A group of farmers had decided to protest the inauguration of the Expressway on Thursday, demanding that farm vehicles be exempted from paying tolls and that service roads be constructed along the Expressway. ‘We received their memorandum on Wednesday and assured them that their demands will be considered sympathetically. They have therefore agreed to withdraw the protest,’ said Kulveer Singh.
THE RIVER ROAD
‘Parliamentarian Ram Gopal Yadav will flag off the first ten vehicles at the zero mile point of the Expressway at 11.00 am near Pari Chowk in Greater Noida,’ said M K S Sundaram, district magistrate of the Gautam Buddha Nagar. However, the Expressway would be formally opened for public only around 4 pm on Thursday. An official of the Jaypee Group, which has developed the project, claimed CCTVs have been installed at 5-km intervals, and that there will be a police post at every 25 km on the Expressway. Highway patrol vehicles will also be present on the Expressway around-the-clock. For medical emergencies, there are ambulances at every police post, in addition to a helicopter on stand-by at Jaypee Sports City.
‘The maximum speed limit has been fixed at 100 kmph for cars and 60 km for heavier vehicles. However, heavy vehicles like trucks will not be allowed to ply on the Expressway between 9 am to 9pm,’ said Kulveer Singh (OSD) of Yamuna Expressway Industrial Developmental Authority (YEIDA) and nodal officer of the Expressway.
Currently, tourists going to Agra use National Highway (NH) – 2. The travel time on this route is over four hours. However, the toll rates on the Expressway which were to be fixed by Tuesday had not been fixed till the Wednesday evening. A group of farmers had decided to protest the inauguration of the Expressway on Thursday, demanding that farm vehicles be exempted from paying tolls and that service roads be constructed along the Expressway. ‘We received their memorandum on Wednesday and assured them that their demands will be considered sympathetically. They have therefore agreed to withdraw the protest,’ said Kulveer Singh.
THE RIVER ROAD
- The Yamuna Expressway project was announced by the then Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati in 2001.
- It was then called the Taj Expressway and was to connect Delhi to Agra via Greater Noida.
- The Taj Expressway Industrial Development Authority was created for the expressway and the development of the area along it.
- The project was stalled after the change of government in Uttar Pradesh in 2003.
- Mayawati revived the project in 2007 and the development of the project was assigned to Jaypee Group.
- On 11 July 2008 Taj Expressway Industrial Development Authority was renamed the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA).