Chitrakoot: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday laid the foundation stone of the 296-km-long Bundelkhand Expressway and said it will prove to be the development expressway of the region. The expressway will pass through Uttar Pradesh's Chitrakoot, Banda, Hamirpur and Jalaun districts.

It will link the Bundelkhand region, considered to be one of the most backward areas of the country, to national capital Delhi through the Agra-Lucknow Expressway and the Yamuna Expressway.

"This project will take Bundelkhand on the path of development, it will prove to be the development expressway of the region and definitely change peoples lives in this entire region," the prime minister said after laying the foundation of the expressway here by pressing a button.

"To come up at a cost of around Rs 15,000 crores, this project will create thousands of job opportunities and connect the common people with facilities in bigger cities," he said.

Be it the Bundelkhand Expressway, the Purvanchal Expressway or the proposed Ganga Expressway, they will all increase connectivity in Uttar Pradesh and increase job avenues, Modi said.

Recalling the state of affairs in the Bundelkhand region in the past, he said, "You must have seen in the past decades how in the name of Bundelkhand and farmers, packages worth thousand of crores of rupees were announced but farmers did not benefit."

"But now the country has come out of that phase and every single paise is reaching its right beneficiary," the prime minister said.

Modi also said "a provision of Rs 3,700 crore has been made for the Uttar Pradesh Defence Corridor in this year's budget. These two schemes (Defence Corridor and Expressway) have a deep relationship. The Bundelkhand Expressway will give speed to Uttar Pradesh Defence Corridor."

The expressway will be supplementing the nodes of the Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor announced by the central government in February 2018.

The prime minister also launched 10,000 farmers' producer organisations all over the country.