Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav’s ambitious Lucknow-Agra Expressway has come under the scanner of the state government over an alleged land scam. The project is now being probed for irregularities where farm land was allegedly passed off as land for residential purposes for the expressway.

Swinging into action, the Yogi Adityanath government has directed 10 district magistrates to probe all land deals executed for the project in around 230 villages, executed over the last 18 months, said a PTI report, quoting official sources. Public sector company RITES has been entrusted with the task of conducting a technical survey of the expressway within a month, the report adds.

Around 3,500 hectare of land was purchased from 20,456 farmers in 10 districts of 232 villages.

While the previous Akhilesh Yadav government had inaugurated the 302-km long expressway with much pomp, some tracts were lying incomplete.

The current state government claims that around Rs 670 crore of the amount allocated for the project are still lying unused despite 99.5 per cent of the land for the project having already been purchased. Around Rs 200 crore of this amount is with the district magistrates and the rest were with the Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA), it says. The district magistrates have been asked to return the funds lying with them, while the amount with UPEIDA has been reversed.