NHAI has denied claims that the Lucknow-Kanpur expressway caved in, saying only a small surface patch slipped and was fixed within hours.

The clarification came after a video started doing the rounds on social media on Sunday, showing a damaged stretch of the newly opened Lucknow-Kanpur Greenfield Elevated Expressway near Unnao’s Korari area.

The clip quickly picked up steam online, with people questioning how a brand new highway could already be falling apart. NHAI Project Director Nakul Prakash Verma pushed back on that framing pretty firmly.

He told PTI that what actually happened was limited to the upper wearing coat, essentially the top layer of the road surface, over a stretch of around 40 metres.

According to him, that’s a very different thing from a cave-in, which happens when the soil underneath a road settles and the whole structure sinks. Nothing like that occurred here, he said.

The repair itself didn’t take long either. Verma said the affected patch was fixed before 5 pm on Sunday, and traffic was moving normally on the expressway soon after.

On the question of whether this points to a bigger construction quality problem, Verma was fairly matter of fact about it.

He said this kind of minor surface issue can turn up occasionally on long bituminous stretches, something that’s rare on concrete roads but not unheard of on asphalt ones.

He also said there’s no plan right now for a separate inquiry into the incident, calling it a routine technical fix rather than anything more serious.

The video was first posted by a local Samajwadi Party worker before the party’s media wing picked it up and amplified questions about construction standards.

Several social media users went further, alleging corruption and raising concerns about how public funds were used on the project. None of those allegations have been verified by any government body so far.

The expressway itself is a 63 km stretch that cost around ₹4,700 crore to build.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Union minister Nitin Gadkari and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath inaugurated it on July 13, with the goal of cutting travel time between Lucknow and Kanpur and easing pressure on the older route connecting the two cities.

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