You want something, cigarettes, pan or tea?,” my driver Vivek asks. “You may not get anything much from here on.”
We are just entering Orai tehsil from Kanpur Dehat district, and it would come bang on the 296km-long Bundelkhand Expressway, inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last weekend. The state-of-the-art access-controlled highway zips through six districts of the region in western Uttar Pradesh, and is touted as the latest feather in Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s ‘pragati’ (progress) cap.
Yet, for all its fancy features and grand gala opening, the fact remains that Bundelkhand remains one of the most backward regions even in UP. And that’s saying a lot (and the reason behind Vivek's warning).
“None of us even bothered to travel to the region till now,” says Shivam, who lives in Lucknow. “It was considered so backward, with nothing going for it. Even water was a problem until the recent ‘Arjun Sahayak’ irrigation project was worked out.” Water wagons - trains bringing much-needed drinking water into the region’s villages - were apparently a reality till a few years ago. It wouldn't even be a stretch if Bundelkhand till now was known to the outside world for its Chambal Ravines as well as Rani Laxmi Bhai of Jhansi.
This Expressway aims to change that viewpoint. For UP government and CM Yogi, the Bundelkhand Expressway is especially significant, beyond the obvious infra push and his development agenda. The backward region in western UP, stretching from Jhansi near the MP border towards Chitrakoot in central UP has generally stood with the saffron party at the hustings, despite recent turmoil in the region over the farm laws as well as its lack of development.
The CM now hopes that the Expressway will act as the catalyst not just for the region’s progress, but also stamp the final seal of approval that will keep it firmly in BJP’s kitty - and this ‘engine’ would definitely not be thinking of just the next (2024) general elections.
“This Expressway will not just speed up the connectivity to Delhi, but the development aspirations of Bundelkhand, too,” said the prime minister at the inauguration.
“There was a time when our people used to travel long distances to Delhi or Mumbai or Chennai for a job,” said a local BJP politician. “Now this highway will bring so much opportunities that they won’t need to go anywhere, they can stay here itself and contribute to Bundelkhand’s development.”
Right now, that projection remains a stretch. The Expressway passes through six districts in the region, starting at Chitrakoot and passing through Hamirpur, Banda, Mahoba, Jalaun and Auraiya, before linking to the Agra-Lucknow Expressway at Etawah. While the locals have been promised access for their produce to Delhi (the Agra-Lucknow Expressway further links to the Yamuna Expressway at Agra all the way to Delhi's doorsteps) and all-round development thanks to the new highway, no one’s sure how exactly this will come about.
The option, and that is a long-term one, is the promise of future industrialisation. There are plans to set up industrial hubs a la Noida (a region of UP bordering the national capital that has used the promixity to attract businesses) in the districts of Banda and Jalaun, which straddle the freeway. Jalaun is also a little over an hour away from UP’s traditional industrial hub of Kanpur. There is also the Defence Corridor, a pet project of CM Yogi which envisions world-class defence manufacturing being set up here.
While the earlier expressways in UP were looked at as infra projects as well as a means to speed up connectivity between important centres (like Yamuna Expressway bringing Agra and Taj Mahal closer to the national capital or the Ganga Expressway bringing state capital Lucknow closer to the trade hubs of western Uttar Pradesh as well as Delhi), the Bundelkhand one is supposed to be the means to an end in itself, equally to push the ruling party’s prospects (some state ministers and leaders unabashedly even made open electoral pleas to this effect in their speeches at the inaugural ceremony) as well as acting as a lever to the region’s push-up from its abject backwardness.
Interestingly, unlike most other major road and highway projects helmed by NHAI and Nitin Gadkari’s roads and transport ministry, the Bundelkhand Expressway is the baby of the UP government and CM Yogi, with the UPEIDA, a state govt entity for developing industrial hubs along expressways, getting it ready. The project, costing Rs 14,800 crore, was completed in just a little over two years. With this, UP now accounts for 37 per cent of all expressways in the country.
