NEW DELHI : Amid preparations for the Defence Expo in Lucknow next month, the Uttar Pradesh government is fast-tracking the construction of the 296-km long Bundelkhand Expressway , which will serve as the lifeline of the proposed ‘defence corridor’ in the state.The government released the first tranche of Rs 435 crore on January 9 for the construction of the expressway, which it plans to complete in two years. Prime Minister Narendra Modi may lay the foundation stone of this project in Chitrakoot later this month, said people aware of the matter.Four companies have been awarded contracts for constructing different parts of the corridor, for which the Yogi Adityanath government has said it has chosen bidders who will help bring down the project cost 13 per cent to Rs 7,766 crore from the initially estimated Rs 8,898 crore.The expressway will serve as the main access to the defence corridor, which will come up on both its sides. A state government official said nearly 96 per cent of the land required for the expressway has already been acquired from nearly 21,000 farmers at a cost of Rs 2,000 crore. “Speedy construction of the expressway will give confidence to defence manufacturers to set up units in the defence corridor as their goods will have a fast-access road for transport,” said the official, who did not wish to be identified.So far, 78 per cent of the land needed for industrial units in the defence corridor has been acquired and a second phase of land acquisition is on in Jhansi, where 80% of the required land is located.The Bundelkhand Expressway will offer proximate access to the Jhansi, Chitrakoot, Jalaun and Kanpur nodes of the defence corridor project. It will pass 50 km away from the Jhansi node while a national highway connecting it will start from Chitrakoot and pass through Jalaun. The expressway will then join the existing Lucknow-Agra expressway to connect to the Agra node of the defence corridor and provide seamless road connectivity for defence manufacturers to Delhi as well.Chief minister Yogi Adityanath had last month said that construction of the expressway would begin in January and that the project was vital as the defence corridor would come up on both sides of the expressway.