Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday inaugurated the 341 km Purvanchal Expressway in Uttar Pradesh after landing on the highway airstrip in an IAF C-130 Hercules plane.
In a nearly hour-long inauguration speech, PM Modi described how the Purvanchal Expressway will fast-track the region, and by extension the state, on the road to development. He also mounted a scathing attack on previous regimes, blaming them for UP’s backwardness and accusing them of hampering the state’s advancement with their dynastic politics and corruption.
He said that development under previous CMs was limited to places where they had homes and families, but the present regime is giving fruits of developments to the eastern region as good as to the western part of Uttar Pradesh. The previous governments reduced the vital eastern part of the state to “mafiavaad” and poverty, but the BJP government is now writing a new chapter of development, he said. He said the six-lane expressway will serve as the lifeline of the eastern region and give a big push to the economic development of the region and the state. The state goes to assembly polls early next year. The 341-km expressway links state capital Lucknow with Ghazipur and has been constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 22,500 crore. PM Modi landed on the Purvanchal Expressway airstrip in a military transport aircraft. The 3.2-km airstrip has been constructed on the expressway to facilitate the emergency landing of fighter aircraft.
