Govt marks 10 projects for special monitoring

LUCKNOW: Having crossed the halfway mark of its present tenure, the UP government seems to have made a clear departure from populist schemes to infrastructure development. The chief minister office has shortlisted key infrastructure projects and 10 of them have been marked for special monitoring.
Chief minister’s principal secretary Rakesh Bahadur has been holding regular meetings with departmental heads to get the progress report and sort out impediments at the government level.At one such meeting, Bahadur sternly warned Noida officials for the delay in the Night Safari project, development of the kisan marts and of the PWD for the incomplete bridges for over a decade.
Bahadur has shortlisted 41 projects and constituted a team to review the progress on a daily basis, brief it to the chief minister and seek his spot approval. According to sources, projects high on chief minister Akhilesh Yadav’s priority list out of 41 shortlisted are Lucknow-Agra expressway, Janeshwar Mishra park, Lucknow Metro, CG city, Night Safari, super-speciality cancer institute, river-front beautification along river Gomati, modern police control rooms in six cities, IT city in Lucknow and Agra. He himself has interacted with the officials of various department to offer all sorts of assistance for the expeditious implementation.
The Samajwadi Party leadership has realised that the first two and a half years of time has proved unproductive as doles and freebies failed to give the desired benefits even in terms of votes, says a political analyst. So, it has now focused on basic infrastructure like power, roads and bridges.
The work on the India’s longest expressway between Agra and Lucknow has already started with the foundation-laying on November 23. It will have four smart cities between Agra and Kanpur and this road could be extended up to Balia via Azamgarh. Apart from this, the government is also looking into the timely widening of the four-lane roads into six lanes. Besides, the government has set 2016 deadline for completion of nearly 242 bridges over major rivers and road overbridges which have been lying incomplete for over one and a half decade.
IN OVERDRIVE
These are the top ten projects on UP government’s priority list:
1. Agra–Lucknow e-way | Longest in the country to be completed in three years
2. Lucknow Metro | Work already started; first train likely to ply in beginning of 2017
3. Super-specialty cancer hospital | To come up inside CG city, work started
4. IT cities (Lucknow & Agra) | To be developed by HCL, construction work on
5. Kushinagar Int’l Airport | To cater to over 2.5 lakh tourists visiting the Buddhist site
6. Intra-state airlines | Private taxis will become commonplace once the project kicks off
7. Lohia Gramin Avas Yojana | Started for BPL families on the lines of Centre’s Indira Awas Yojana
8. JP International Centre | Lucknow’s answer to Delhi’s IHC, coming up near Lohia Park
9. Janeshwar Mishra Park | One of the biggest parks in Asia spreading over 300 acre; A section already started
10. Beautification of Lucknow Old City & Agra | Govt has set December 31 deadline for Lucknow projects