Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday dedicated several infrastructure and performed ground breaking ceremonies of other projects to the tune of ₹605.82 crore under the Ghaziabad municipal corporation, via videoconferencing from Lucknow.
He also launched the first five electric buses in the city, out of the total 50 allocated, which are set to operate on four dedicated routes soon.
CM Adityanath dedicated four projects worth ₹88.49 crore, and performed ground-breaking ceremonies for several other projects worth ₹517.33 crore. The programme comes ahead of the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh in coming months, and the election code of conduct is likely to be announced in the near future.
“The projects dedicated include a state of art auditorium in Nehru Nagar, which will give a chance for performing events like exhibitions, cultural activities, among others. We may also outsource the operation of the auditorium in the future. Other projects include a shopping complex at Ramte Ram Road, and two of our garbage factories at Sihani and Hindon Vihar where solid waste from the city will be segregated and processed,” said MS Tanwar, municipal commissioner.
He said that the ground breaking ceremony was taken up for a tertiary sewage treatment plant, which will come up at Indirapuram from where 40 million litres per day (MLD) of sewage water will be treated and supplied to industrial units in the Sahibabad Site IV industrial area.
“The project is worth ₹319 crore and will come up in two years. Once this project gets operational, we will be able to save 40MLD of groundwater as we will supply similar quantities to the industrial units. The other project worth ₹39 crore is of a multi-level parking, which is proposed near to the New Bus Adda metro station. The project is likely to be completed within a year… Apart from these, the city also got its five electric buses and more will arrive in the coming weeks,” Tanwar added.
City gets its first five electric buses
Ghaziabad is also set to get 50 low-floor air-conditioned electric buses, which are likely to be rolled out in several phases, under this project. This was approved by the Centre in August 2019, and those will be run as a city transport service. This is the first state-run transport service in Ghaziabad. Each of the buses will have a capacity to cover a distance of 120 kilometres in a single charge. The buses will have an option for charging from a single point, which will take nearly two hours for being fully charged, at the 12 bays. They will also have a double point charging facility, which will take just one hour to fully charge the batteries.
Five of the 15 e-buses launched on Tuesday will run on four designated routes being finalised, and will cover a distance of 88 kilometres per trip. The first route over 33 kilometres (one side) will connect Anand Vihar to Muradnagar, the second 20km route from Anand Vihar to Raj Nagar’s ALT Centre, the third 20km route from Dilshad Garden to Govindpuram, and the fourth 15km route will connect various points from Tila Morh to New Bus Stand. The minimum and maximum fares for the bus ride, on any route, has been fixed at ₹10 and ₹40 per passenger, respectively.
In August 2019, the Ministry of Heavy Industries sanctioned 5,595 e-buses to 64 cities in different states for intra-city and inter-city bus services, and 600 of the total buses were approved for 11 cities in Uttar Pradesh including 50 for Ghaziabad.
During an event in Lucknow on October 5, Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off 75 such buses under the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric vehicle (FAME II) for seven cities, including Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Gorakhpur and Jhansi.
“Initially, the buses will operate on one route between ALT-Centre in Raj Nagar and Kaushambi for first hand assessment of operations. More buses in the other three routes will also be opertaional soon,” said AK Singh, regional manager of Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC).
UP CM to unveil projects in Greater Noida
CM Adityanath will also attend an event at Gautam Buddha University’s Auditorium in Greater Noida around 2pm on Thursday (January 6) to unveil several projects and distribute tablet phones and smartphones to fresher college students. Students from all the six districts — Gautam Budh Nagar, Ghaziabad, Hapur, Bulandshahr, Baghpat and Meerut division will attend the event, said officials on Tuesday.
The chief minister is likely to inaugurate public projects and lay the foundation stone for other projects (details not provided) between Noida and Greater Noida, said sources, adding that Gautam Budh Nagar police, administration, and other departments concerned have been coordinating for the event.
“We have directed the staff to take required measures for a successful event,” said Suhas LY, district magistrate, Gautam Budh Nagar.
Suhas LY, police personnel and other officials visited the university campus to take stock of the preparedness of the event. Officials of the Noida and Greater Noida authorities on Tuesday prepared a list of all the projects, which are to be inaugurated or could have foundation stone laying ceremony, however, the authorities did not share details about the same.
