About
Bundelkhand Expressway connects the temple town of Chitrakoot in southern UP to the Agra-Lucknow Expressway interchange at Etawah, traversing the historically water-stressed and economically backward Bundelkhand region of UP and Madhya Pradesh. The 296 km expressway was sanctioned in 2018 and delivered in just 28 months — at the time of its opening in July 2022, India's fastest expressway construction record by far.
The project is the second leg of UP's expressway-led economic development strategy after Purvanchal. Unlike Purvanchal's 6-lane configuration, Bundelkhand was built as 4-lane with provision for future 6-lane expansion — a deliberate cost-control choice given the region's lower projected traffic. UPEIDA executed the project in 4 packages totalling ₹14,716 crore.
Design features: design speed 120 km/h, 14 major bridges, 4 rail-over-bridges, 6 toll plazas, 4 jan suvidha kendras, and a 2.5 km airstrip near Banda for emergency IAF operations. The expressway crosses the Yamuna, Ken, Betwa, Bagain, and Chambal rivers — connecting Bundelkhand's historically isolated districts to UP's main road grid for the first time.
The expressway has improved Chitrakoot-Etawah travel from 8 hours to 3.5 hours. Combined with Agra-Lucknow + Lucknow-Ghazipur + Yamuna Expressways, it forms a continuous 1,000 km+ expressway route from Delhi-NCR (via Greater Noida) to eastern UP.
Cross-references
14Indian Standards, IRC codes, and InfraLens knowledge articles that bear on this project's design and execution. Each link opens the relevant reference page.
Related calculators
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Notable features
- India's fastest expressway construction (28 months for 296 km)
- Four-lane (2+2) with provision for future 6-lane expansion
- Forms continuous 1,000+ km expressway with Yamuna + Agra-Lucknow + Purvanchal
- 2.5 km airstrip for emergency IAF operations
- Crosses 5 major rivers including Yamuna, Chambal, Betwa
- First major expressway through the Bundelkhand region