Yamuna expressway to become operational this month

Yamuna Expressway, the rapidtransit corridor between Delhi and Agra, will be operational soon, as the new government in Uttar Pradesh has shown it the green flag. It was originally scheduled to be operational by December 2011. Once Yamuna Expressway is open, the drive from Greater Noida to Agra will take just 90 minutes. One of the key infrastructure project of Mayawati government in the public-private partnership , the Yamuna Expressway, besides connecting Delhi to Agra through Noida-Greater Noida Expressway, will touch 1,182 villages of Gautam Budh Nagar, Bulandshahar , Aligarh, Hathras (Mahamaya Nagar) and Mathura district. The 165kmlong Yamuna expressway is one of the longest access-controlled six-lane rigid pavements in India. The expressway can be extended to 8 lanes in future and would provide direct access to the forthcoming Yamuna Economic Zone and the international airport and aviation hub at Jewar, which are slated to be constructed along the Yamuna Expressway. The expressway will also ease traffic on Delhi-Agra NH-2 , which is already congested and runs through the heart of cities like Faridabad, Ballabgarh and Palwal in Haryana. It will reduce the travel time between two cities, New Delhi and Agra. Both these places have an enormous potential to generate traffic and economic development. The world-famous heritage momentum, Taj Mahal, will be a mere 100 minutes from the proposed Yamuna International Airport near Jewar through this expressway . The expressway will provide a safe and an uninterrupted movement of passenger and freight traffic between the nation capital Delhi and Agra. Once the expressway is opened for traffic, it is expected to boost the socio-economic development of districts like Gautam Budh Nagar, Aligarh, Mathura and Agra along the expressway. Agra is already well connected to Kolkata, Mumbai, and Jaipur, etc, by a network of national highways. This, along with the expressway, will provide highlevel connectivity to all these destinations from Delhi, especially when the proposed ring road around Agra town comes into being. To promote residential and commercial developments along the Yamuna Expressway, five land parcels (500 hectares each) have been given to the JP Group in the jurisdiction of Gautam Budh Nagar, Aligarh, Mathura and Agra. JP will use these land parcels for township projects. Rama Raman, former CEO of Yamuna Industrial Development Authority, said: "The developing urban conglomerates at Noida and Greater Noida, which are in close proximity to the NCT of Delhi, are in need of an uninterrupted direct route to Agra. This will boost the economic development of Uttar Pradesh. The Yamuna Expressway provides this opportunity . Opening of Yamuna Expressway will bring in a lot of benefits to the people in terms of good connectivity and faster transit, and give a leg up to tourism." With the expressway aligned with the proposed Taj Economic Zone and the Taj International Hub Airport, and all these within easy reach of Delhi, Noida and Greater Noida, the Yamuna Expressway project will certainly accelerate the overall development of the region. The Yamuna Expressway lies between the high density vital traffic corridors of the national highway connecting Delhi and Agra and the old Sher Shah Suri Road (NH-91 ) connecting Kanpur-Aligarh-Khurja-Bulandshahar-Ghaziabad and Delhi.The expressway has a great potential of attracting traffic from all these routes." The Yamuna Expressway along with the existing NH-2 and NH-91 and interconnectivity between all three of them will form a good network of roads which, in turn, would open up a vast area to all-round development in places like the urban conglomerates in Noida and Greater Noida. Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/real-estate/news-/yamuna-expressway-to-become-operational-this-month/articleshow/12566796.cms