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{/googleAds} Officials said a consortium of Malaysian construction industries is evincing keen interest in the 285-km long Expressway project estimated to cost around Rs.15,000 crores. Already the officials of the Malayasian Construction Industry Board have met chief minister Akhilesh Yadav.

Party sources in Agra indicated that the UP chief minister is keen that the project should be completed in a record time, at least work should begin long before the countdown to 2014 elections.

The 165 km-long Yamuna Expressway, from Greater Noida to Chalesar in Agra has been developed and being operated by the Jaypee group.

The Agra-Lucknow Expressway, according to officials here, will be a model green project and will run through what is described as the 'Yadav-Land,' from Firozabad to Kanpur. It will connect the Yamuna Expressway in Agra on Firozabad road, touch the proposed international airport at Tundla and also connect to the proposed Sanjay Khan project of a theme park of seven cities. Land-owners in the area are looking forward to dispose of their land at earn compensation at the same rates as the Yamuna Expressway farmers. "Overnight we will have hundreds of millionaires in the belt," says a Tundla-based school teacher Subhash.

However, environmentalists in Agra have questioned the utility of the Agra-Lucknow Expressway, as the national highway is already there and "because no studies have been done of the demand pressure or the need for a parallel Expressway." An Environmental Impact Assessment public hearing is yet to be held.

Shravan Kumar Singh of the Braj Mandal Heritage Conservation Society says "thousands of hectares of agricultural land, hundreds of full-grown trees coupled with ecological damage and displacement of population will only add to the problems. Already this belt is heavily polluted due to increasing number of vehicles on the roads, as pointed out by the recent study of the Centre for Science and Environment."

"Instead of solving the basic problems of the Aam Aadmi, the Samajwadi Party government in UP is focusing on show-pieces that are visually exciting and deceptively development-oriented," says a former socialist Vinay Paliwal.