Construction of the 63-kilometre-long Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway is set to begin sometime in July this year, a report in Dainik Jagran says.

The e-way, to be built at a cost of over Rs 4,700 crore, was notified National Expressway 6 in the Gazette of India released on 15 December last year.

The expressway will start from Shaheed Path in Lucknow, pass through the district of Unnao and will be linked to the proposed ring road in Kanpur.

A 13-km long stretch of the expressway, between Amausi and Bani in Lucknow, will be elevated. It will help in reducing traffic congestion in the city. The expressway will also be linked to Unnao-Lalganj-Raebareli highway.

At least three major bridges, 28 minor ones, 38 underpasses and six flyovers will be built as part of the Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway.

The expressway will cut travel time, currently around two hours, to 50 minutes.

The e-way will be a major boost for the defence corridor coming up in Uttar Pradesh. Both Lucknow and Kanpur, already a part of the defence manufacturing ecosystem and supply chain in the country, form two of the six nodes of the Defence Corridor, the other four being Chitrakoot, Jhansi, Agra and Aligarh.

The Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway has been designed as an eight-lane road but will initially have only six lanes, reports say.

For the construction of the expressway, around 440 hectares of land will be acquired in the Unnao district and 20 hectares in Lucknow. The expressway will pass through 31 villages in the Unnao district and 11 villages in Lucknow.

Land acquisition for the expressway is likely to cost around Rs 900 crore.

UP currently has two operational and three under-construction e-ways.

Land acquisition for the sixth expressway, the Ganga e-way, has also begun.

The three expressways currently under construction are likely to be opened for traffic before the assembly election in the state next year.