Upgrade of 21 Uttar Pradesh highways to bring down journey time, Infra News, ET Infra

LUCKNOW: The public works department (PWD) has initiated technical and financial feasibility studies for upgrading 21 state highways that connect busy towns and are expected to see increased vehicular traffic in the years to come. The decision was taken to provide enhanced road safety features and level of services to road users besides cutting travel time.

The department had on December 22 last engaged the Uttar Pradesh State Highways Authority to check if private players shall be roped in to widen and upgrade the carriageway from existing two to four-lane.

“In the first phase that would take about six to eight months we will conduct surveys to generate estimates on traffic volume, engineering, alignment and road safety features required, additional land requirement, geometrics, pavement, structures, facilities and number of toll plazas needed. Once the survey is over we would finalise the capital cost for a project,” said a senior official of the authority.

He added that as per present scenario and increased input cost, it is estimated that an average of Rs 15 to Rs 20 crore will be required to upgrade 1-km long road stretch (including land acquisition cost).

Engineer-in-chief and head of the PWD Sandeep Kumar said the need for strengthening the road network in towns with high economic activity has been felt to provide better connectivity and bring down the travel time.

“Among 21 road stretches, only the ones that are financially feasible will be handed over for development and operations to private players,” said an official of the authority.