Even as the Opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh, especially the BJP and the Samajwadi Party (SP) continue to rally against Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati's pet project, the Ganga Expressway, the state government remains unmoved in its bid to go ahead with the project. The Opposition's scathing attack on the BSP government for allegedly giving undue benefits to the contractor of the project, JP Industries, at the cost of the farmers, as well as rendering thousands of hectares of fertile land into concrete waste are being seen by the government as a ":absolutely baseless and superfluous':. An official in the industries department said, according to the concept paper prepared by the irrigation department and an estimation of state public works department, embankments to be built along the proposed Ganga Expressway will save around 3.40-lakh hectare land from floods. ":It is expected that this 3.40-lakh hectare of land, which is single crop yielding due to floods at present, will be converted to multi-crop fertile land after the completion of the expressway and embankments. Hence, thousands of farmers will be able to reap benefits of at least double crop,': the official said. The proposed 1,047-km, access-controlled, 8-lane expresway from Ballia to Greater Noida is to be 155 metre wide, including the width of the embankments and service roads. According to the government records, the proposed land-parcels to be given to developer for development, which is around 12,281 hectare, largely includes infertile and barren land.
