Crossing over - fragments from a journey
AM
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Some of these pieces are part of my work as a journalist here. Others
include my experiences as a traveler here. They include my views of a
world that I have been transplanted in, and my memories of a world
that I left behind. In many ways, I have a voice (I can speak English)
and they don't. Yet we are the same, both struggling to make sense of
this new world.
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Sunday, January 03, 2010
Yamuna Expressway
We travelled on the Yamuna Expressway, taking the service lane, the
mud road from Agra to Delhi, for three days. We stopped by many
villages, talked to many villagers about their hopes and fears once
the road comes along.
To cover most of the 165 km, it took us hours on the dirt road. We
snaked in through villages, hit the service lane where it was
motorable. The car hardly exceeded 15 kms an hour speed but the
journey was fun. An edited version of the story appeared in the sunday
section of the Indian Express on Jan. 3, 2010.
Chinki Sinha
Yamuna Expressway, Jauary 1, 2010
Every morning, a file of little children travel down the wide road
that cuts through their villages, each carrying a shovel. All of them
seemed to be very tiny, the youngest being a nine-year-old boy, as
they hobbled past the underpass, bent under the weight of the shovel
that was about their height.
All of them dropped out of schools to look for work on the 165
kilometer Yamuna Expressway, the biggest concrete road in the country
and one of the most ambitious projects in Uttar Pradesh, a six-lane
wide expressway with the potential to be widened to an eight-lane
expressway that will reduce the travel time from Noida to Agra by
about 90 minutes and bring development to the area. As of now, it
takes about 3.5 hours to reach Agra.
So o n a Wednesday morning near Piperauli Bangar in Mathura , a score
of little children of all ages clustered around a man who peered ahead
and announced no trucks were coming this way and so they would have to
wait until one came along, or walk further up the “highway road”. If
they were lucky, they’d find a truck waiting to be unloaded.
So the little urchins, dressed in rags, their faces covered in dust
and fly ash that the road threw up as workers filled its belly with
mud mixed and fly ash, dragged their shovels and walked on.
Because time is running out for them and for the road, too.
The project has been issued directives from the state government that
the state’s first expressway be completed in time for the Commonwealth
Games and open to traffic. But it is unlikely that the expressway will
be motorable by Commonwealth Games in October this year. As per the
concession agreement signed with the UP government, Jaypee Infratech
was to hand over the expressway in 2013 but internal deadlines demand
the expressway is complete by 2011.
“We can’t do it before April 2011. But we don’t want to not be hopeful
but it is difficult to finish the project in 10 months. We are just
being realistic,” Samir Gaur, director in charge of Jaypee Infratech
that is building the expressway, said.
The scale of the work on the expressway is colossal. At least 8,000
workers, 24 sub contractors and more than 600 supervisors are working
around the clock on the stretch. Land acquisition for the project –
around 5000 hectares for the expressway and an additional 6000
hectares for development along the controlled access road, part of the
ribbon expressway project – is almost over, according to company
officials.
Earth filling on around 80 per cent of the expressway is over, and
concretisation is underway on about 20 kilometers of the stretch.
The company has imported sophisticated machinery from Germany – four
road rollers that can simultaneously pave six lanes.
The first 40 kilometres would be located in Gautam Budh Nagar, passing
through Noida, Dhankaur, Mirzapur and Jewar, 20 kilometres in Aligarh,
through Tappal, followed by 90 kilometres in Mathura passing Nohjhil,
Mat, Raya and Baldev, and 15 kilometres in Agra, with the expressway
culminating near Etmadpur in Agra.
Around 1,182 villages were notified by the government with regards to
the project and the development parcels to be constructed along the
corridor.
The pavement of the expressway planned to be a dual carriageway will
consist of cement concrete. Mumbai-Pune expressway is the only other
expressway that uses cement concrete. Thirteen service roads with
total length of 168 kilometers will be constructed concurrently with
the expressway. The company also has the right to develop 25 million
square metres or 6,175 acres of land along the Yamuna Expressway at
five locations - 500 hectares each in Noida, Aligarh and Agra and
1,000 hectares in Gautam Buddha Nagar - for residential, commercial,
amusement, industrial and institutional purposes. In addition, the
concessionaire also has the rights to develop an area of 2,500
hectares.
This expressway is based on the concept of ribbon development along
the expressway corridor. In many states, the government is attracting
developers for expressways by giving them incentives like leasing them
land along the road to develop residential plots and commercial
property so the cost can be recovered.
The UP government has approved such property development along the
Yamuna Expressway and the Rs. 400 billion Ganga Expressway.
According to the authority, the expressway will not only provide a
fast moving corridor to minimize the travel time, and connect the main
townships and commercial centers on the eastern side of the river, but
also bring development to the region and ease congestion on NH-2. In
addition, it will connect urban urban conglomerates in Noida to other
cities, and provide for Export Promotion Zones including Taj Economic
Zone, Taj International Airport and Aviation Hub.
In many ways, the expressway has reconfigured the local geography. The
villages lie on one side of the road, what remains of the farmland
lies on the other.
In this region in Western UP, farmlands are on the periphery of many
projects that will eventually require more land. Not only the Yamuna
and Ganga expressways will pass through these districts but also the
Eastern Railway Freight Corridor and Delhi-Moradabad National Highway.
Six interchanges have been proposed on 165 km long Yamuna Expressway
from Zero Point (Parichowk) to Kuber-Chhalesar, Agra.
At least ten 5-star hotels have been proposed in sports city, in
addition to residential complexes to be built by private builders.
***
It is not easy to find work on the expressway. All along the
expressway, thousands of workers, mostly migrant laborers from Bihar
and West Bengal, are working long shifts through the night to meet the
deadline. The concessionaire Jaypee Infratech has roped in more
contractors, and is racing against time to deliver. Concretization has
only begun on few of the stretches. Although the company officials say
the project will not be completed until April 2011, the sub
contractors have been given a deadline of March 2010.
Joginder, 9, and the youngest among the 30 odd children who leave
their homes early morning, had not been able to take home any wages
for the last two weeks.
Rs. 40 that he can earn for a day’s tough labour on the road isn’t a
lot of money. But he is tiny and there’s many others looking for work.
So he never bargains.
In fact, no one bargains here.
“We walk until there’s a truck and then we run towards it hoping to
get work. Often we get pushed over. There are so many of us looking
for the same kind of job,” 12-year-old Pradip said. “Sometimes, we
walk 8-9 miles looking for work on the road.”
Pradip too dropped out of the school after the “highway road” came to
his village. At the school run by the government, the teachers asked
for money and he didn’t have any.
His father drives a truck and the family owns no land, and getting by
is difficult.
“At the school they were asking for Rs. 5,” he said. “I needed to look
for work. Whatever I make, I hand it to my mother and she can cook dal
on such days.”
When he had told his parents he was quitting school, they didn’t press
for explanations.
“They said go and work,” he said. “So I come everyday. How can we eat
otherwise?”
Now that he has taken the road, he isn’t bothered where it takes him.
When this road is completed and trucks and cars whiz past the
villages, Joginder and Pradip will move on to yet another road.
Maybe in crisscrossing those expressways and the state is building at
least two more – the Ganga Expressway and the Hindon Expressway - they
will get to a city where growth will absorb them. Maybe someday, he
would be able to take one of those roads back home if their villages
remain.
The authority on its web site claims that employment opportunities
will be given to the local population and preference will be given to
land losers during construction as per requirement and their
qualification.
But Laxman Singh, a 33 year old shepherd, is desperate. For a week, he
hasn’t been able to find any work on the expressway.
“All the land is going. We sold our cattle. For two months I am coming
to the expressway looking for work. We go hungry on most days,” he
said. “All the jobs go to migrant labourers. They give it to them
because they can exploit them. We are from here, we can unite and
protest. They can’t.”
After eight hours of walking up and down the road looking for odd
jobs, Singh slumped on the side of the road. Exhausted and hopeless.
It would be yet another night without food, he said.
At the zero-point on the 165-Km Yamuna Expressway in Greater Noida,
there is no pronounced signage marking the beginning of the one of the
most expensive and controversial projects of that state. Although the
project has been renamed Yamuna Expressway, the sign boards still
carry the name “Taj Expressway.”
Here the road begins with an interchange that is under construction
with massive pillars jutting into the sky, and goes over the Greater
Noida Expressway, descending on the other side.
The project that was conceived in 2001 finally took off in 2006 when
work began on the controversial expressway and the Yamuna Expressway
Authority, formerly Taj Expressway Authority, started acquiring land
along the proposed expressway.
The Uttar Pradesh government constituted the Yamuna Expressway
Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) that is executing the
project.
The contract with Jaiprakash Associates was signed in February 2003,
which was to complete the Expressway within seven years. Back then,
the estimated cost was pegged at Rs. 1,600 crores.
A dream project of the Mayawati government which was at the helm in
2003, work on the expressway was halted within a month of Samajwadi
Party’s taking the oath the same year.
Former Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav not only halted construction
on the expressway but also ordered an inquiry by Justice Ranganath
Mishra, a retired Allahabad High Court judge, claiming that Mayawati
had committed irregularities. But after this was disbanded by the high
court, yet another committee was appointed and this too was disbanded.
Then, in May of 2006, Justice S. Narayan inquiry committee, a third
probe, was appointed by Mulayam Singh to enquire into corruption
charges against Mayawati. But the court gave Mayawati a clean chit and
stated that work should resume on the project as it was important for
the industrial development of Uttar Pradesh. Mulayam Singh Yadav
finally gave up and JAL was again brought on board to complete the
expressway.
But it didn’t end at that. Once the Yamuna Expressway Authority
started acquiring land along the proposed expressway, numerous Public
Interest Litigations were filed in the courts challenging the validity
of land acquisition.
However, in October 2009, the Allahabad High Court allowed the state
to go ahead with the ambitious project that will come up on land
belonging to 115 village panchayats.
The same company – the Jaypee Group - that ran into troubles with
Yamuna Expressway has also bagged another contract – an eight-lane 20
km long inner Ring Road from National Highway 2 near Kuberpur village
to National Highway 3 near Rohta village – the estimated cost of which
is around Rs. 1,100 crores.
Touted as the growth engine for future development of the state, the
Rs. 10,000 crore project, its cost having shot up on account of delays
and litigations, the road will have six interchanges from point zero
at Noida. Six toll plazas will be constructed on the expressway to
recover the cost of the project build by the concessionaire on build
operate transfer PPP basis that will operate it for 36 years before
finally handing it to the government.
***
Rajmal Singh hopes the road doesn’t come. But he knows it will.
Because from his village, he can see the massive pillars, and the
noise of the machines keep him awake through the nights. During these
long nights, he fears for his future. When they came to acquire the
farmland in Salarpur, a village on the outskirts of Noida, Singh
became a millionaire overnight. But he doesn’t know what he will do
with the Rs. 2 crores that he got for his land. He has bought some
land in Mathura. But this is where he was born, and the road full of
promises has nothing for him.
And When the road comes, he won’t be here. He would be gone like many
others in his village to look for work elsewhere, and learn to live
with loss of his past.
He almost wishes the road project is disbanded, the workers are sent
home, and then they can reclaim their lands and grow wheat as they
once did. Because the money won’t last forever. That’s the truth of
it.
“We are not educated. Where can we find jobs?,” he said. “We feel
betrayed. They promised us jobs but we have heard nothing so far.”
But Jaypee officials said Abadi Scheme was proposed for those who lost
their houses to the project and the company would ensure they were
rehabilitated.
“See, some issues were there but we agreed to the compensation that
the government set and in many cases we negotiated. We have given
handsome compensation but all dreams can’t be fulfilled,” Samir Gaur
said. “With progress and development, changes come. But we have
schemes for villagers and there are abundant of opportunities. We are
coming up with Abadi villages near the residential plots.”
Salarpur’s fate was sealed when the project was conceived around six
years ago. Squeezed in between the Formula 1 racing track and the
Yamuna Expressway, almost the entire village falls under what the
villagers term “acquirement.” Only three houses will be spared because
the road that split their lands, and now threatens their homes, is a
hungry road with a voracious appetite.
Most of the land acquisition process is over and only in some cases,
physical possession of the lands is remaining.
The Allahabad High Court in December 2009 dismissed a bunch of writ
petitions challenging acquisition of land by the state government.
But the village itself is in a limbo, waiting, hoping, and yet it
knows it doesn’t have options.
Along the “highway road”, hopes ran high once. Dreams came floating on
the road.
In Salarpur, they thought they would set up shops along the way, and
the exodus wouldn’t have to take place.
But then, all the land is earmarked for development. A sports city is
being built; an airport is on the cards, residential plots are already
being advertised and sold.
In the evenings, the skies turn pink. It is what they call the
steelworks sunset. Pink and blurred. Something to do with welding,
smelting, or fixing. But it is no longer how the sunsets were before
the road snaked through the farms. In time, more things will change.
Just like the sunset, they too come under the spell of the road,
charmed, yet slave to it.
Rajmal Singh knows this well. Already he can see the signs of evil. He
feels the road is the wreckage of everything, of the past, of the
future, of their existence.
“Some bought plots. But that’s just a few of us. Some bought cars,
some will drink away the money,” he said. “The road has only brought
misery to us.”
The liquor shops are stocked and villagers queue up, angry,
frustrated, dejected.
“We didn’t want to sell but we had to. We will die of hunger. They
didn’t give us any jobs,” Inderpal Singh, another farmer said. “Now,
all we do is play cards and drink. We are just ruining ourselves.
Perhaps, when all is over, we will go to Delhi and find construction
jobs.”
Inderpal owned just under a bigha of land. He got Rs. 5 lakhs.
The villagers had tried to hold on to their lands. They approached the
Bharitya Kisan Union, protested, marched, but now the fervour is sort
of dying.
The young are angry still like Sarjit Singh, who is pursuing his
computer science degree from a Greater Noida Institute.
“It is a betrayal. They took the land. They should let us keep the
house,” he said.
Like his father Rajmal Singh, he can’t resign himself to the
inevitable.
Then there are others who don’t know if they should be angry or cry
over their fate.
Sixty-five-year-old Shanti Devi came to Salarpur half a century ago as
a young bride. They didn’t own land but reared cattle. The expressway
authority has quoted Rs. 6.75 lakhs for their house that falls in the
zone earmarked for development alongside Yamuna Expressway. With two
buffaloes and a bit of money, the family is at a loss for options.
“I will not leave. My son is weak. Where will we go? This is my silent
protest. I will die in my house,” she said.
Salarpur and six other villages have been notified. Where they stand,
residential plots, the racing track and a university will come up.
The expressway is facing opposition from farmers’ groups. Many of them
are openly rebelling against land acquisition saying the compensation
is not at par with the market rate. Some are not ready for
negotiations even. Last year in August, one farmer was shot in police
firing on farmers protesting against inadequate compensation for land
being acquired for the expressway. In Mathura, the protests
intensified after farmers burnt down the police chowki and the post
office in Bajna, Mathura. For five days, the village had shut down.
Risal Singh, a local, said the road divides their village and although
they parted with their land, they can’t sit back and let the authority
occupy more land. The state government notified more than 1100
villages when the project commenced leaving thousands of farmers in a
state of insecurity and fear.
So, a protest is again brewing, and farmers organize meetings
frequently. In at least 400 villages in the area, the agitators are
distributing leaflets, organizing and mobilizing more farmers to stage
dharnas if the authority tries to acquire more land. They have been
notified but they were told that the more land would be acquired only
if the need arises.
Rajendra Singh, who was shot on the day of the protest, lived in
Avalkhera village. Since his death, his widow and his children have
left the village. But his death has left the village in a state of
shock, including Mukesh Nauhar, 30, who still has to limp. After a
bullet hit him in the leg on the day of the protest, he has been
“useless”.
“I can’t work on the fields. I don’t know what to do,” he said. “That
day there were so many people. Then police came. I thought something
hit me and then I saw blood. I still can’t walk properly. My leg has
become numb.”
The addiction to growth is catching up, infecting all, permeating to
the little corners that could only be accessed through narrow lanes
running through the farms.
Finally, the road and development was going to come to them. Land
prices have shot up like in Kuberpur where the interchange is under
construction at the Agra end for the expressway.
But against the backdrop of development and all its promises, there’s
discontent and a sense of loss, of betrayal.
From her primary school in Vas Agaria, Chandni can see the “highway
road” and she speaks of her fears. In the village, they talk about the
vices that will travel on the road when it is built.
“They say it is bad. It will bring damage. People can go and jump off
the road and die. We will become like the city. There will no fresh
air,” she said. “We will no longer remain innocent.”
That’s what she heard her parents say about the road.
But until they put in the iron fences, and the set up the tollbooths
along the Yamuna Expressway, the mud and fly ash road is their
playground. Young boys climb on to the road with their cricket gear
and make the dusty road their pitch.
Further up on the road, a yellow truck carrying mud and ash rolls by.
On its rear “Global Truck” is painted in black.
On the side of the road, the village waits its turn to be globalized,
for malls, apartment buildings, hotels, motels, and displacement.
About the Expressway
* Jaypee Group has also been awarded a concession to develop a 1,047
km long eight-lane access-controlled Ganga expressway between Greater
Noida and Ghazipur-Ballia, the largest private sector infrastructure
investment in India. Yet another
expressway is being planned in the state called the Hindon Expressway
named after
yet another river in the state like the other two projects. The 250-km-
long Hindon Expressway will pass through Ghaziabad and
Saharanpur up to Dehradun in Uttarakhand.
* The Jaypee Group is also building an eight-lane 20 km long inner
Ring
Road in Agra at a cost of around Rs. 1,100 crores. This will be built
on Design-Finance-Operate and Transfer (DFOT) basis.
* The Yamuna Expressway is planned to be a dual carriageway initially
consisting of three 3.75-meter wide lanes in each direction.
* Planned expressway facilities (some of which will involve third-
party service providers) include rest areas with parking, shelters and
toilets; roadside facilities with fuel stations and coffee shops,
restaurants, motels and various other facilities; and plantation and
landscaping for environmental, safety and aesthetic purposes.
* Around 9,000 families are allegedly affected by the expressway.
Around
Rs 460 crore have been disbursed as compensation.
* Motorists can drive at a speed of up to 120 kmph on the expressway
drastically cutting down on the travel time from Noida to Agra. The
expressway will have no speed breakers.
A look at the compensation rates given to farmers for their land.
*Compensation rates*
* NOIDA: Rs 800 per sqm
* Aligarh : Rs 390 per sqm
* Mathura : Rs 350 per sqm
* Hathras: Rs 350 per sqm
* Agra : Rs 400 per sqm
The Expressway to be developed in Three Phases:-
1. Phase I: Expressway Stretch between Greater Noida and Taj
International Airport.
2. Phase-II: Expressway Stretch between Taj International Airport and
an intermediate destination between Taj International Airport and Agra
3. Phase III: Expressway Stretch between intermediate destination and
Agra.
Deadline – Commonwealth Games, 2010.
Quick Facts
Length 165.537 Km
Right of Way 100m
Number of Lane 6 Lanes extendable to 8 lanes
Jaypee Infratech Limited an Indian infrastructure development company
engaged in the development of the Yamuna Expressway and related real
estate projects. JIL part of the Jaypee Group, was incorporated on
April 5, 2007 as a special purpose company to develop, operate and
maintain the Yamuna Expressway in the state of Uttar Pradesh,
connecting Noida and Agra.
Posted by chinki at 10:21 PM
Almetal
magnitude of development. But isn' this the price of development that
one has to pay for a brighter future?
This could be the story of almost any place in India, where farmers
try and hang on to their land and resist the steady march of progress.
Many fall off the map completely while the more enterprising of the
lot manage to reinvent themselves and thrive in the changing scenario
and demographics.
AM
traveling from GN to Agra through village roads @15 Kms/Hr.
What a heart touching story, this is !
Take care,
Arnab M
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> read more »
Kamal
by the
magnitude of development but look at it the other way these people who
were anyway starving are getting employment. This is an example of the
invisible hand of adam smith working in a capitalistic society.
Kamal