Intended to be a growth engine for Uttar Pradesh, the R14,000-crore, six-lane, access-controlled Yamuna Expressway, originally planned to be thrown open to the public before the 2010 Commonwealth Games, is finally all dressed up and ready, but unfortunately has nowhere to go.

Almost two months after the project?s concessionaire, Jaypee Infratech, communicated to the state government that the expressway was complete, it is still awaiting the state government’s nod to officially declare it open. This despite the soft-spoken Akhilesh Yadav, the state?s new chief minister, having said that he strongly believed that ?if we can double the speed on the roads, it can triple the pace of our economy?.

The 165-kilometre high-speed road, which connects Greater Noida with Agra, is not only expected to reduce travel time from 4 hours to just 90 minutes, but is also expected to have huge spillover effects such as bringing in huge investment opportunities and development on both sides of the expressway, save time and fuel, add to revenue from tourism and also benefit the general public, apart from adding to the state government?s income.

While Jaypee officials say that the expressway is complete and that the public has already started using it unofficially, without paying any toll, the state government maintains that the expressway can be declared open only after the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) declares the project complete and the government fixes the toll rates and speed limit.

?We are yet to receive the completion report from YEIDA as some minor work remains incomplete in certain patches along the route,? said a senior official of the state government on condition of anonymity.

?Once all the safety norms are in place, we will get the completion report from RITES, the project?s technical advisor, and then we will fix the toll rates and the speed limit. It would be after that only that we can declare the expressway operational,? said the official, adding that he hoped that all this would be done within the next month.

However, there seems to be no visible effort on the government’s part to expedite the opening of the expressway, which has already seen an investment of almost Rs 14,000 crore and with no revenue accruing yet, the cost is escalating every day.

Part of the Yamuna Expressway was already ?tried and tested? by thousands of Formula One enthusiasts from all over the world who had travelled from the national capital to Greater Noida to watch the races in October last year. And after the Formula 1 success and the international acclaim the event generated, the previous Mayawati-led government was keen to go to the polls in 2012 projecting the Yamuna Expressway as a significant accomplishment. But despite all efforts by her government, the project could not be completed on time before the notification for the assembly elections.

?It would have been only proper for the new government, which has been saying that the private sector needs to be wooed aggressively for developing infrastructure in the state, to give a strong and positive signal to the industry by flagging off a project which is already complete, even while the government is in the process of finalising new policies to attract fresh investment. These policies would need time to attract investment, while this project, once dedicated to the public, will work wonders for the state and will, in itself, be a huge attraction for investing in the region,? said an official of the state government on condition of anonymity, adding that the decision-making in this government, has so far been tardy.

The Yamuna Expressway project was first conceived in 2003 by the then BSP government and named the Taj Expressway. But the Samajwadi Party that won power in the next election mothballed the project and an inquiry was launched into the award of contract to the Jaypee Group. Although the inquiry committee gave a clean chit to the tender process, the project was revived only after the formation of the BSP government again in 2007. It was then renamed the Yamuna Expressway, with a deadline of completing it by 2013.