Jaiswal Tells NHAI to Spare Locals on Varanasi Elevated-Road Ramps

Uttar Pradesh minister Ravindra Jaiswal on Friday asked the National Highways Authority of India to design elevated-road ramps in Varanasi so that local residents are not displaced without necessity. He flagged the proposed Hukulganj ramp as a point of concern and suggested an alternative near the Ayurvedic College if many homes would be affected.

The instruction was attributed to on-record remarks by Jaiswal, who holds independent charge of registration, stamp and court fees. The comments followed a Thursday design meeting that included Divisional Commissioner S. Rajalingam, District Magistrate Satyendra Kumar, NHAI officials and local councillors, with a digital presentation of the proposed route.

According to that account, the elevated corridor is described as running from Kazisarai over the Harhua flyover and the Ring Road through Cantonment and Phulwaria toward Namo Ghat. Ramp placement, NHAI indicated in the coverage, remains among the main engineering challenges, and alternatives are under consideration.

Jaiswal’s Friday message centred on protecting neighbourhood interests at junctions where ramps touch the ground. He said that if the Hukulganj ramp design would affect a large number of residents, planners should examine an option near the Ayurvedic College instead. The remark does not cancel the Hukulganj proposal; it places a ministerial preference for cutting unnecessary displacement on the design table.

Project cost figures circulating around the corridor are large. Friday’s briefing cited a cost of around Rs 25,000 crore. A July Cabinet decision on twin Ganga–Varuna corridors had put the outlay at Rs 25,446 crore. Friday’s ministerial remarks should not be read as a fresh Cabinet sanction; they are an instruction on design sensitivity after the Thursday technical meeting.

Elevated roads in dense historic cities collide with property lines at every touchdown. Varanasi’s Cantonment–Phulwaria–Namo Ghat stretch mixes defence-adjacent land, commercial ribbons and older residential pockets. Councillors present at the digital route briefing are stakeholders as much as NHAI’s alignment engineers. The minister’s public framing — keep an eye on local interests — signals that political clearance will track how many plots are disturbed at each ramp.

Hukulganj sits on a busy urban artery where a ramp footprint could cut into shopfronts and homes. An Ayurvedic College–side alternative, if technically feasible, would shift the impact zone. Neither option was declared final in the Friday account. NHAI’s acknowledgment that ramp locations are the hard part, and that alternatives are being studied, leaves the design open.

The Thursday meeting’s cast — Divisional Commissioner, District Magistrate, NHAI and councillors — matches the usual clearance chain for national-highway works intersecting municipal and revenue land. Digital route models help visualise pier lines and ramp grades before gazette notifications and land schedules are locked. Jaiswal’s Friday intervention adds a political filter: unnecessary displacement should be avoided where another geometry works.

Residents along the Kazisarai–Harhua–Ring Road–Cantt–Phulwaria–Namo Ghat concept line will watch subsequent NHAI drawings for which ramp sites survive. Until revised plans are published, the confirmed news is limited to the Thursday design review and the minister’s Friday instruction to spare locals where possible, with Hukulganj versus Ayurvedic College explicitly named as the trade-off under discussion.

Keep the Cabinet twin-corridor figure and the Friday “around Rs 25,000 crore” citation in the same frame without collapsing them into a new approval story. The elevated-road package remains a design-and-alignment story this week, not a groundbreaking announcement. What Friday puts on record is a senior state minister telling NHAI to protect local interests in ramp design, with Hukulganj named as the sensitive site and an Ayurvedic College–area ramp floated as the alternative if displacement there would run high.