UP government on Monday gave in principle approval to construction of an expressway between Lucknow and Agra. The six-lane expressway that seeks to reduce the distance between the two cities from the existing 350 km to 274 km, will pass through Yadav-dominated belt comprising districts like Etawah, Mainpuri and Kannauj. After starting from Agra, it would touch Firozabad and emerge at Malihabad near Lucknow. Proposed to come up by 2016 at an estimated cost of around Rs 9,800 crore, the ambitious project will reduce the travel time between Lucknow and Agra from existing 5 hours to 3.5 hours. The state government is also likely to put in place the annuity-based system to decide on the toll that will be charged from the commuters. Infrastructure and industrial development commissioner, Anil Kumar Gupta said that the system will ensure that the developer does not quote arbitrary toll rates. “The traffic volume will be ascertained every year and accordingly, the toll rates will be decided,” the IIDC said. While reviewing the project during a presentation, UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said that the expressway would help farmers to ship their produce far and wide. He said that the expressway should be seen as an extension of Yamuna Expressway which was thrown open to public use last week. “The idea is to provide better transportation facilities to the people and farmers in the region,” Gupta said. He said that the access-controlled expressway could be extended to eight lanes as and when required. E-way to have 80 links for service lanes The expressway, IIDC said, would have 135 underpasses for cattle and 80 links for service lanes. This will be apart from the 10.5 metre of green belt on both sides. The alignment of the expressway, officials said, is based on the shortest possible distance between the two cities (technically known as ‘crow flight’). In this case, the shortest possible distance between Lucknow and Agra, coincidentally, passes through the constituencies and home district of powerful Yadav family. Interestingly, official sources ruled out the possibility of allocation of land to private developers, like in case of Yamuna Expressway. “Whatever land will be acquired will be for the construction of the expressway and the state government will ensure that bare minimum fertile land is taken for the purpose,” a senior official, associated with the project, said. In fact, the expressway will come along side canals, Akhilesh Yadav said. The e-way will take the shortest route reducing the distance between Lucknow & Agra to 274 km.