A section of the Greenfield National Elevated Expressway in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao collapsed just 12 days after it was inaugurated, raising fresh questions about the quality of construction.
The Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway was inaugurated by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath after they inspected the project at the 49-kilometre mark in Unnao.
The damaged portion, located near Korari in Unnao, subsided over a stretch of nearly five to seven metres.
The cave-in occurred on the Kanpur-to-Lucknow carriageway during heavy rainfall. Reports said continuous rain caused the soil beneath the road to shift, resulting in the collapse of a section of the expressway.
A video of the damaged stretch quickly went viral on social media after Samajwadi Party leader Madhusudan Yadav shared footage and questioned the construction quality of the multi-crore project. He also criticised the agencies involved and raised concerns over quality standards.
In the video, Yadav said he spotted the damaged section while travelling on the Lucknow-Kanpur Elevated Expressway near Korari on the Kanpur-to-Lucknow side. Referring to the recent inauguration attended by Nitin Gadkari and Rajnath Singh, he alleged that despite the government's claims about the expressway's quality, it had already developed serious damage.
Authorities later carried out patchwork repairs and restored the affected stretch.
The latest incident comes just months after the same expressway sustained damage even before its inauguration. Responding to criticism at the time, Uttar Pradesh minister Dinesh Pratap Singh remarked, "Build your own road," adding that roads often develop damage during construction and that there was "nothing new" about it.
The 63-kilometre, six-lane Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway features India's second-longest elevated corridor and is the country's first expressway built using automated, intelligent machine-guided construction technology.
It is equipped with AI-based speed enforcement systems, emergency call boxes every two kilometres, and two integrated 24x7 control rooms. Designed for speeds of up to 120 kmph, the expressway has reduced travel time between Lucknow and Kanpur to around 35-45 minutes. The toll for cars has been set at ₹275, while two-wheelers are not allowed on the expressway.
