Yamuna Expressway

We travelled on the Yamuna Expressway, taking the service lane, the mud road from Agra to Delhi, for three days. We stopped by many villages, talked to many villagers about their hopes and fears once the road comes along.
To cover most of the 165 km, it took us hours on the dirt road. We snaked in through villages, hit the service lane where it was motorable. The car hardly exceeded 15 kms an hour speed but the journey was fun. An edited version of the story appeared in the sunday section of the Indian Express on Jan. 3, 2010.


Chinki Sinha

Yamuna Expressway, Jauary 1, 2010

Every morning, a file of little children travel down the wide road that cuts through their villages, each carrying a shovel. All of them seemed to be very tiny, the youngest being a nine-year-old boy, as they hobbled past the underpass, bent under the weight of the shovel that was about their height.

All of them dropped out of schools to look for work on the 165 kilometer Yamuna Expressway, the biggest concrete road in the country and one of the most ambitious projects in Uttar Pradesh, a six-lane wide expressway with the potential to be widened to an eight-lane expressway that will reduce the travel time from Noida to Agra by about 90 minutes and bring development to the area. As of now, it takes about 3.5 hours to reach Agra.

So o n a Wednesday morning near Piperauli Bangar in Mathura , a score of little children of all ages clustered around a man who peered ahead and announced no trucks were coming this way and so they would have to wait until one came along, or walk further up the “highway road”. If they were lucky, they’d find a truck waiting to be unloaded.

So the little urchins, dressed in rags, their faces covered in dust and fly ash that the road threw up as workers filled its belly with mud mixed and fly ash, dragged their shovels and walked on.

Because time is running out for them and for the road, too.

The project has been issued directives from the state government that the state’s first expressway be completed in time for the Commonwealth Games and open to traffic. But it is unlikely that the expressway will be motorable by Commonwealth Games in October this year. As per the concession agreement signed with the UP government, Jaypee Infratech was to hand over the expressway in 2013 but internal deadlines demand the expressway is complete by 2011.

“We can’t do it before April 2011. But we don’t want to not be hopeful but it is difficult to finish the project in 10 months. We are just being realistic,” Samir Gaur, director in charge of Jaypee Infratech that is building the expressway, said.

The scale of the work on the expressway is colossal. At least 8,000 workers, 24 sub contractors and more than 600 supervisors are working around the clock on the stretch. Land acquisition for the project – around 5000 hectares for the expressway and an additional 6000 hectares for development along the controlled access road, part of the ribbon expressway project – is almost over, according to company officials.

Earth filling on around 80 per cent of the expressway is over, and concretisation is underway on about 20 kilometers of the stretch.

The company has imported sophisticated machinery from Germany – four road rollers that can simultaneously pave six lanes.

The first 40 kilometres would be located in Gautam Budh Nagar, passing through Noida, Dhankaur, Mirzapur and Jewar, 20 kilometres in Aligarh, through Tappal, followed by 90 kilometres in Mathura passing Nohjhil, Mat, Raya and Baldev, and 15 kilometres in Agra, with the expressway culminating near Etmadpur in Agra.

Around 1,182 villages were notified by the government with regards to the project and the development parcels to be constructed along the corridor.

The pavement of the expressway planned to be a dual carriageway will consist of cement concrete. Mumbai-Pune expressway is the only other expressway that uses cement concrete. Thirteen service roads with total length of 168 kilometers will be constructed concurrently with the expressway. The company also has the right to develop 25 million square metres or 6,175 acres of land along the Yamuna Expressway at five locations - 500 hectares each in Noida, Aligarh and Agra and 1,000 hectares in Gautam Buddha Nagar - for residential, commercial, amusement, industrial and institutional purposes. In addition, the concessionaire also has the rights to develop an area of 2,500 hectares.

This expressway is based on the concept of ribbon development along the expressway corridor. In many states, the government is attracting developers for expressways by giving them incentives like leasing them land along the road to develop residential plots and commercial property so the cost can be recovered.

The UP government has approved such property development along the Yamuna Expressway and the Rs. 400 billion Ganga Expressway.

According to the authority, the expressway will not only provide a fast moving corridor to minimize the travel time, and connect the main townships and commercial centers on the eastern side of the river, but also bring development to the region and ease congestion on NH-2. In addition, it will connect urban urban conglomerates in Noida to other cities, and provide for Export Promotion Zones including Taj Economic Zone, Taj International Airport and Aviation Hub.

In many ways, the expressway has reconfigured the local geography. The villages lie on one side of the road, what remains of the farmland lies on the other.

In this region in Western UP, farmlands are on the periphery of many projects that will eventually require more land. Not only the Yamuna and Ganga expressways will pass through these districts but also the Eastern Railway Freight Corridor and Delhi-Moradabad National Highway.

Six interchanges have been proposed on 165 km long Yamuna Expressway from Zero Point (Parichowk) to Kuber-Chhalesar, Agra.

At least ten 5-star hotels have been proposed in sports city, in addition to residential complexes to be built by private builders.

***

It is not easy to find work on the expressway. All along the expressway, thousands of workers, mostly migrant laborers from Bihar and West Bengal, are working long shifts through the night to meet the deadline. The concessionaire Jaypee Infratech has roped in more contractors, and is racing against time to deliver. Concretization has only begun on few of the stretches. Although the company officials say the project will not be completed until April 2011, the sub contractors have been given a deadline of March 2010.

Joginder, 9, and the youngest among the 30 odd children who leave their homes early morning, had not been able to take home any wages for the last two weeks.

Rs. 40 that he can earn for a day’s tough labour on the road isn’t a lot of money. But he is tiny and there’s many others looking for work. So he never bargains.

In fact, no one bargains here.

“We walk until there’s a truck and then we run towards it hoping to get work. Often we get pushed over. There are so many of us looking for the same kind of job,” 12-year-old Pradip said. “Sometimes, we walk 8-9 miles looking for work on the road.”

Pradip too dropped out of the school after the “highway road” came to his village. At the school run by the government, the teachers asked for money and he didn’t have any.

His father drives a truck and the family owns no land, and getting by is difficult.

“At the school they were asking for Rs. 5,” he said. “I needed to look for work. Whatever I make, I hand it to my mother and she can cook dal on such days.”

When he had told his parents he was quitting school, they didn’t press for explanations.

“They said go and work,” he said. “So I come everyday. How can we eat otherwise?”

Now that he has taken the road, he isn’t bothered where it takes him. When this road is completed and trucks and cars whiz past the villages, Joginder and Pradip will move on to yet another road.

Maybe in crisscrossing those expressways and the state is building at least two more – the Ganga Expressway and the Hindon Expressway - they will get to a city where growth will absorb them. Maybe someday, he would be able to take one of those roads back home if their villages remain.

The authority on its web site claims that employment opportunities will be given to the local population and preference will be given to land losers during construction as per requirement and their qualification.

But Laxman Singh, a 33 year old shepherd, is desperate. For a week, he hasn’t been able to find any work on the expressway.

“All the land is going. We sold our cattle. For two months I am coming to the expressway looking for work. We go hungry on most days,” he said. “All the jobs go to migrant labourers. They give it to them because they can exploit them. We are from here, we can unite and protest. They can’t.”

After eight hours of walking up and down the road looking for odd jobs, Singh slumped on the side of the road. Exhausted and hopeless. It would be yet another night without food, he said.

At the zero-point on the 165-Km Yamuna Expressway in Greater Noida, there is no pronounced signage marking the beginning of the one of the most expensive and controversial projects of that state. Although the project has been renamed Yamuna Expressway, the sign boards still carry the name “Taj Expressway.”

Here the road begins with an interchange that is under construction with massive pillars jutting into the sky, and goes over the Greater Noida Expressway, descending on the other side.

The project that was conceived in 2001 finally took off in 2006 when work began on the controversial expressway and the Yamuna Expressway Authority, formerly Taj Expressway Authority, started acquiring land along the proposed expressway.

The Uttar Pradesh government constituted the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) that is executing the project.

The contract with Jaiprakash Associates was signed in February 2003, which was to complete the Expressway within seven years. Back then, the estimated cost was pegged at Rs. 1,600 crores.

A dream project of the Mayawati government which was at the helm in 2003, work on the expressway was halted within a month of Samajwadi Party’s taking the oath the same year.

Former Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav not only halted construction on the expressway but also ordered an inquiry by Justice Ranganath Mishra, a retired Allahabad High Court judge, claiming that Mayawati had committed irregularities. But after this was disbanded by the high court, yet another committee was appointed and this too was disbanded.

Then, in May of 2006, Justice S. Narayan inquiry committee, a third probe, was appointed by Mulayam Singh to enquire into corruption charges against Mayawati. But the court gave Mayawati a clean chit and stated that work should resume on the project as it was important for the industrial development of Uttar Pradesh. Mulayam Singh Yadav finally gave up and JAL was again brought on board to complete the expressway.

But it didn’t end at that. Once the Yamuna Expressway Authority started acquiring land along the proposed expressway, numerous Public Interest Litigations were filed in the courts challenging the validity of land acquisition.

However, in October 2009, the Allahabad High Court allowed the state to go ahead with the ambitious project that will come up on land belonging to 115 village panchayats.

The same company – the Jaypee Group - that ran into troubles with Yamuna Expressway has also bagged another contract – an eight-lane 20 km long inner Ring Road from National Highway 2 near Kuberpur village to National Highway 3 near Rohta village – the estimated cost of which is around Rs. 1,100 crores.

Touted as the growth engine for future development of the state, the Rs. 10,000 crore project, its cost having shot up on account of delays and litigations, the road will have six interchanges from point zero at Noida. Six toll plazas will be constructed on the expressway to recover the cost of the project build by the concessionaire on build operate transfer PPP basis that will operate it for 36 years before finally handing it to the government.

***

Rajmal Singh hopes the road doesn’t come. But he knows it will. Because from his village, he can see the massive pillars, and the noise of the machines keep him awake through the nights. During these long nights, he fears for his future. When they came to acquire the farmland in Salarpur, a village on the outskirts of Noida, Singh became a millionaire overnight. But he doesn’t know what he will do with the Rs. 2 crores that he got for his land. He has bought some land in Mathura. But this is where he was born, and the road full of promises has nothing for him.

And When the road comes, he won’t be here. He would be gone like many others in his village to look for work elsewhere, and learn to live with loss of his past.

He almost wishes the road project is disbanded, the workers are sent home, and then they can reclaim their lands and grow wheat as they once did. Because the money won’t last forever. That’s the truth of it.

“We are not educated. Where can we find jobs?,” he said. “We feel betrayed. They promised us jobs but we have heard nothing so far.”

But Jaypee officials said Abadi Scheme was proposed for those who lost their houses to the project and the company would ensure they were rehabilitated.

“See, some issues were there but we agreed to the compensation that the government set and in many cases we negotiated. We have given handsome compensation but all dreams can’t be fulfilled,” Samir Gaur said. “With progress and development, changes come. But we have schemes for villagers and there are abundant of opportunities. We are coming up with Abadi villages near the residential plots.”

Salarpur’s fate was sealed when the project was conceived around six years ago. Squeezed in between the Formula 1 racing track and the Yamuna Expressway, almost the entire village falls under what the villagers term “acquirement.” Only three houses will be spared because the road that split their lands, and now threatens their homes, is a hungry road with a voracious appetite.

Most of the land acquisition process is over and only in some cases, physical possession of the lands is remaining.

The Allahabad High Court in December 2009 dismissed a bunch of writ petitions challenging acquisition of land by the state government.
But the village itself is in a limbo, waiting, hoping, and yet it knows it doesn’t have options.

Along the “highway road”, hopes ran high once. Dreams came floating on the road.

In Salarpur, they thought they would set up shops along the way, and the exodus wouldn’t have to take place.

But then, all the land is earmarked for development. A sports city is being built; an airport is on the cards, residential plots are already being advertised and sold.

In the evenings, the skies turn pink. It is what they call the steelworks sunset. Pink and blurred. Something to do with welding, smelting, or fixing. But it is no longer how the sunsets were before the road snaked through the farms. In time, more things will change. Just like the sunset, they too come under the spell of the road, charmed, yet slave to it.

Rajmal Singh knows this well. Already he can see the signs of evil. He feels the road is the wreckage of everything, of the past, of the future, of their existence.

“Some bought plots. But that’s just a few of us. Some bought cars, some will drink away the money,” he said. “The road has only brought misery to us.”

The liquor shops are stocked and villagers queue up, angry, frustrated, dejected.

“We didn’t want to sell but we had to. We will die of hunger. They didn’t give us any jobs,” Inderpal Singh, another farmer said. “Now, all we do is play cards and drink. We are just ruining ourselves. Perhaps, when all is over, we will go to Delhi and find construction jobs.”

Inderpal owned just under a bigha of land. He got Rs. 5 lakhs.

The villagers had tried to hold on to their lands. They approached the Bharitya Kisan Union, protested, marched, but now the fervour is sort of dying.

The young are angry still like Sarjit Singh, who is pursuing his computer science degree from a Greater Noida Institute.

“It is a betrayal. They took the land. They should let us keep the house,” he said.

Like his father Rajmal Singh, he can’t resign himself to the inevitable.

Then there are others who don’t know if they should be angry or cry over their fate.

Sixty-five-year-old Shanti Devi came to Salarpur half a century ago as a young bride. They didn’t own land but reared cattle. The expressway authority has quoted Rs. 6.75 lakhs for their house that falls in the zone earmarked for development alongside Yamuna Expressway. With two buffaloes and a bit of money, the family is at a loss for options.

“I will not leave. My son is weak. Where will we go? This is my silent protest. I will die in my house,” she said.

Salarpur and six other villages have been notified. Where they stand, residential plots, the racing track and a university will come up.

The expressway is facing opposition from farmers’ groups. Many of them are openly rebelling against land acquisition saying the compensation is not at par with the market rate. Some are not ready for negotiations even. Last year in August, one farmer was shot in police firing on farmers protesting against inadequate compensation for land being acquired for the expressway. In Mathura, the protests intensified after farmers burnt down the police chowki and the post office in Bajna, Mathura. For five days, the village had shut down.

Risal Singh, a local, said the road divides their village and although they parted with their land, they can’t sit back and let the authority occupy more land. The state government notified more than 1100 villages when the project commenced leaving thousands of farmers in a state of insecurity and fear.

So, a protest is again brewing, and farmers organize meetings frequently. In at least 400 villages in the area, the agitators are distributing leaflets, organizing and mobilizing more farmers to stage dharnas if the authority tries to acquire more land. They have been notified but they were told that the more land would be acquired only if the need arises.

Rajendra Singh, who was shot on the day of the protest, lived in Avalkhera village. Since his death, his widow and his children have left the village. But his death has left the village in a state of shock, including Mukesh Nauhar, 30, who still has to limp. After a bullet hit him in the leg on the day of the protest, he has been “useless”.

“I can’t work on the fields. I don’t know what to do,” he said. “That day there were so many people. Then police came. I thought something hit me and then I saw blood. I still can’t walk properly. My leg has become numb.”

The addiction to growth is catching up, infecting all, permeating to the little corners that could only be accessed through narrow lanes running through the farms.

Finally, the road and development was going to come to them. Land prices have shot up like in Kuberpur where the interchange is under construction at the Agra end for the expressway.

But against the backdrop of development and all its promises, there’s discontent and a sense of loss, of betrayal.

From her primary school in Vas Agaria, Chandni can see the “highway road” and she speaks of her fears. In the village, they talk about the vices that will travel on the road when it is built.

“They say it is bad. It will bring damage. People can go and jump off the road and die. We will become like the city. There will no fresh air,” she said. “We will no longer remain innocent.”

That’s what she heard her parents say about the road.

But until they put in the iron fences, and the set up the tollbooths along the Yamuna Expressway, the mud and fly ash road is their playground. Young boys climb on to the road with their cricket gear and make the dusty road their pitch.

Further up on the road, a yellow truck carrying mud and ash rolls by. On its rear “Global Truck” is painted in black.

On the side of the road, the village waits its turn to be globalized, for malls, apartment buildings, hotels, motels, and displacement.

About the Expressway


* Jaypee Group has also been awarded a concession to develop a 1,047 km long eight-lane access-controlled Ganga expressway between Greater Noida and Ghazipur-Ballia, the largest private sector infrastructure investment in India. Yet another
expressway is being planned in the state called the Hindon Expressway named after
yet another river in the state like the other two projects. The 250-km-long Hindon Expressway will pass through Ghaziabad and
Saharanpur up to Dehradun in Uttarakhand.

* The Jaypee Group is also building an eight-lane 20 km long inner Ring
Road in Agra at a cost of around Rs. 1,100 crores. This will be built
on Design-Finance-Operate and Transfer (DFOT) basis.

* The Yamuna Expressway is planned to be a dual carriageway initially consisting of three 3.75-meter wide lanes in each direction.

* Planned expressway facilities (some of which will involve third-party service providers) include rest areas with parking, shelters and toilets; roadside facilities with fuel stations and coffee shops, restaurants, motels and various other facilities; and plantation and landscaping for environmental, safety and aesthetic purposes.

* Around 9,000 families are allegedly affected by the expressway. Around
Rs 460 crore have been disbursed as compensation.

* Motorists can drive at a speed of up to 120 kmph on the expressway
drastically cutting down on the travel time from Noida to Agra. The
expressway will have no speed breakers.


A look at the compensation rates given to farmers for their land.

*Compensation rates*
* NOIDA: Rs 800 per sqm
* Aligarh : Rs 390 per sqm
* Mathura : Rs 350 per sqm
* Hathras: Rs 350 per sqm
* Agra : Rs 400 per sqm


The Expressway to be developed in Three Phases:-
1. Phase I: Expressway Stretch between Greater Noida and Taj
International Airport.
2. Phase-II: Expressway Stretch between Taj International Airport and
an intermediate destination between Taj International Airport and Agra
3. Phase III: Expressway Stretch between intermediate destination and Agra.
Deadline – Commonwealth Games, 2010.


Quick Facts
Length 165.537 Km
Right of Way 100m
Number of Lane 6 Lanes extendable to 8 lanes


Jaypee Infratech Limited an Indian infrastructure development company engaged in the development of the Yamuna Expressway and related real estate projects. JIL part of the Jaypee Group, was incorporated on April 5, 2007 as a special purpose company to develop, operate and maintain the Yamuna Expressway in the state of Uttar Pradesh, connecting Noida and Agra.