Other major projects planned to come up along the Expressway, include a Sports City to be built on 300 acre, an auto mart, fashion mart, book mart, city centre and a habitat mart.

Lalit Kumar, Chairman of the Board and CEO of the Greater Noida Authority and the Taj Expressway Authority said, “We hope to complete the Sports City before 2010 Commonwealth Games.”

New plans approved for the city include a combined traffic plan, rain water harvesting, and a solid-waste management plant, two 300-bed super-speciality hospitals and two government colleges, one each for Noida and Greater Noida.

“The schools will be of world-class standard and will accommodate at least 1,500 students each,” Moninder Singh, CEO of Noida Authority, said.

Committees have been set up to coordinate and devise plans for the Metro to reach Greater Noida. A world-class railway station for the district has also been approved, officials said.

The railway station, authorities said, would be the largest in Asia when complete, and the Metro project will be taken up with DMRC after receiving a feasibility report from RITES.

“We hope to make it operational before the completion of the International Airport in Jewar,” Singh said.

Officials said last date for accepting bids will be March 3. The Board has also decided to complete allotting the tenders by the last week of March.

Board raises compensation but farmers unhappy
The Board of Noida, Greater Noida and the Taj Expressway authorities on Tuesday decided to settle the long-pending farmers compensation issue by raising compensation rates for land in the district.

The Board's decision aims to put an end to the long-standing dispute which has seen armed rebellion from farmers in the region.

Lalit Srivastava, Chairman of the Board, said the orders have been passed after recommendations from the panel set up by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati to decide appropriate compensation rates.

The new rates for paternal property (land) in Noida will be Rs 10 lakh per beegha while in Greater Noida the rate has been fixed at Rs 8.5 lakh per beegha.

The rates for non-paternal property has been fixed at 15 per cent lower than that for paternal property.

Though the farmers' unions, especially the Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, called it a “positive step”, they said it was “unsatisfactory”.

The earlier rates in Noida and Greater Noida were Rs 4.40 lakh and Rs 3.79 lakh per beegha.

Raj Pal Singh, head of Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, said, “The rates we were demanding were close to Rs 20 lakh per beegha. Their rate is nowhere close to that. We will try to discuss the issue with officials and if unsuccessful, the struggle will continue.”

Taj and Ganga Expressways to be connected
The Board has decided to set up a panel to examine the possibility of connecting the Taj Expressway from Gr Noida to Agra and the over 1,000 kilometre-long Ganga Expressway from Gr Noida to Ballia.