The perceived need of the hour for the most populous Indian state is connectivity. Thus, the Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) laid out a plan to build five expressways, one of which is the Purvanchal Expressway. Aimed at improving connectivity in Uttar Pradesh’s eastern region and built at Rs 224.95 billion, this 340.8-km expressway is India’s longest. Starting from Chand Sarai village and located on the Lucknow-Sultanpur Road, it passes through Barabanki, Amethi, Sultanpur, Ayodhya, Ambedkar Nagar, Azamgarh and Mau, before terminating at Haidariya village in Ghazipur. The eastern region of the state is now connected to the state and national capitals and further to Varanasi through the Agra-Lucknow and Yamuna Expressways.
“If you see the map of Uttar Pradesh, we started from Delhi and came up to Agra; from Agra one comes upto the Agra-Lucknow expressway; then, if you start from Lucknow and end at the eastern part of the state, that is the Purvanchal Expressway,” explains Awanish Kumar Awasthi, CEO, UPEIDA...
