Less than a week after it was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, parts of the Bundelkhand Expressway caved in due to heavy rain, raising questions about the newly-finished structure.
A portion of the road developed one-and-a-half-foot-deep potholes due to rains at Chiriya Salempur in Uttar Pradesh's Jalaun district on Wednesday night, 21 July, as per UP Expressway Industrial Authority spokesperson Durgesh Upadhyay.
Two cars and a motorcycle suffered accidents on the roadway due to the fractures, as per an NDTV report. Irregularities in the road were also observed at Auraiya.
The potholes were repaired instantly and the road opened to traffic, as per the expressway official.
The four-lane expressway of 296 kilometres which connects Chitrakoot in Madhya Pradesh to Etawah in Uttar Pradesh was inaugurated by PM Modi on 16 July.
The incident has drawn the criticism of not only the Congress and the Samajwadi Party from the Opposition, but a BJP leader as well.
"If the expressway built at a cost of 15 thousand crores cannot withstand even 5 days of rain, then serious questions arise on its quality. The head of this project, the concerned engineer and the responsible companies will have to be summoned immediately and strict action will be taken against them," BJP MP Varun Gandhi said in a tweet, sharing a video of the wrecking.
The expressway, which passes through seven districts of UP, has been constructed at a cost of around ₹14,850 crore. “Every corner of Uttar Pradesh is ready to move forward with new dreams and new resolutions," Modi had said at its inauguration, hailing the efforts of the 'double-engine' government in UP.
'BJP's Half-Hearted Development': Akhilesh Yadav, Congress on Expressway Mishap
"This is a sample of the quality of the BJP's half-hearted development. The Bundelkhand expressway was inaugurated by big people and within a week huge pits of corruption came out on it. It is good that the runway was not built on it," Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said in a tweet in Hindi.
"The caving-in of the Bundelkhand expressway just days after its inauguration proves corruption of the double engine BJP government in the construction of the road. The CM should apologise for endangering lives of people by inaugurating half-finished Bundelkhand expressway," the Samajwadi Party wrote on Twitter.
On the day of inauguration of the Bundelkhand expressway, Akhilesh Yadav had attacked the Yogi Adityanath government alleging corruption in the "half-finished" project.
The UP Congress also targeted the BJP government on Twitter, saying the government had promised pothole-free roads.
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