Patna: The Bihar government has decided to come up with a 16-km-long greenfield expressway to directly connect Patna to Bihta, where the air base is being readied to host commercial flights by 2019-20.

It will not only shorten the 35-km distance between the two places, but will also help smooth drive of people and cut away traffic jams. Bihar State Road Development Corporation (BSRDC) will construct it.

"A preliminary survey has already started for the completely greenfield expressway and our effort will be to complete it by the time the Airports Authority of India (AAI) starts civilian flights from Bihta airport," road construction department principal secretary Amrit Lal Meena said.

The expressway will start between Saguna Mor and Danapur on the western side of Patna and will travel straight to Bihta without any turn. It will be 60-metres wide to allow smooth movement of all types of vehicles - light to heavy.

"Our newly conceptualised land pooling policy will be used to build the dedicated expressway to the Bihta airport. We will acquire 150-metre-wide land strip throughout for the road. Around 50 per cent of the acquired land will be developed and returned to the people from whom it has been taken," Meena said.

The developed area will be along the 60-metre-wide expressway. If anybody doesn't want to take the developed area in lieu of his land, he will be awarded a compensation at the rate of four times the price of land enumerated in the minimum value register (MVR).

No village settlement is coming in the route the road will take. This is going to make the land acquisition process smoother. Efforts are on to stabilise land transactions in the area to remove any hurdles that may come up.

An RCD source said land pooling and returning of 50 per cent land after development is expected to prove to be a huge success among the landowners as it will not take away the cherished sense of possession from them. "It is this sense of possession that proves to be a major hurdle in land acquisition. People do not want to part with their land," the source added.

The RCD is also planning to improve and construct the other existing roads leading to Bihta. These include Bihta-Shivala Road and elevated roads between Danapur to Shivala to Bihta.

Once all the projects are completed, they will address the problem of traffic congestion between Patna and Bihta.