The state chief secretary will hold a meeting next Monday to finalise the tender process. The eight-lane expressway — the first inter-state venture with no intervention by the Centre — is to be built jointly by the governments of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

The officials of both states had met on June 30 to devise a joint strategy for the speedy construction of the expressway. Under the plan, it was decided that the Uttarakhand government would bear the cost of building the Saharanpur-Dehradun stretch of the expressway. The project has already got the nod from the environment ministry and it is likely to be constructed on a build, operate and transfer basis.

Though the aerial inspection for the expressway has been completed, the construction work is expected to begin only by the year-end.

This expressway will start from the border of the NCR at Noida/Ghaziabad. It will run along the banks of the river Hindon and on its way it will touch cities like Meerut, Baghpat, Muzaffarnagar and Kulesra (Saharanpur), which is at the UP-Uttarakhand border. From there, the expressway will be extended to Dehradun and Haridwar.

Once completed, Greater Noida will be have three state-of-the-art expressways named after three rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Hindon passing through the state.