Akhilesh Yadav fast-tracks projects for polls

UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav is now racing against time to ensure the completion of all his dream projects so that he can inaugurate the same well before the Assembly elections are announced.

The Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh will be held in January-February next year and an announcement of the same is likely to be made by the end of this year.

“The chief minister has made it clear that he wants completion of projects by September so that the inaugurations can be done by October,” a senior official in the chief minister’s secretariat said.

Mr Yadav wants to showcase these projects as his government’s major achievements and wants the people to realise the advantage of his brand of development on the eve of elections.

The biggest dream project of the chief minister is the Lucknow-Agra Expressway that winds its way from Lucknow to Hardoi, Unnao, Kanpur, Kannauj, Aurraiyya, Etawah, Mainpuri, Ferozabad and culminates in Agra. The 302-km-long expressway that passes through all important Samajwadi bastions is estimated to cost '15,000 crore and is scheduled to be completed by October 2016.

The government plans to develop agricultural “mandis” along the expressway and provide faster transport facilities for agricultural produce, handicrafts and small industries that lie along the route.

Officials working on the project admitted that the progress of the work was being monitored on a weekly basis and work would now start on double shifts to ensure its on-time completion.

“Development is going to be our main poll plank and these projects will serve as proof of the fact that the Akhilesh government has done maximum development in its tenure. We will not depend on publicity alone but will show the people what we have done for them,” said UP minister Arvind Singh Gope.