Government on the road with PMGSY funds

BHUBANESWAR: More than 95  per cent of funds received under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) has been utilised in the State till July 31. This was revealed at the State-level Standing Committee meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Bijay Kumar Patnaik in the Secretariat conference hall. Rural Development Secretary Surendra Nath Tripathy made a presentation on the present status along with current proposals of PMGSY roads. Till now ` 8,104.59 crore has been received from the Centre for construction of roads and bridges out of which ` 7,723.03 crore, 95.29 per cent has been utilised.Official sources said 21,168.49-km stretch of road has been completed against the sanctioned length of 29,875.12 km. A total number of 5,470 roads connecting 6,781 villages have been completed under the scheme. There has been almost five-fold increase in fund utilisation over the last five years. While in 2001-02, financial achievement under the scheme was ` 36.34 crore, it reached ` 377.37 crore in 2005-06 and `1,924.25 crore in 2010-11. This has been possible because of close supervision and new initiatives like fixation of work targets adopted in the department, Tripathy said.Encouraged with this achievement, the department has set a target to cross ` 2,000 crore fund utilisation during the current year and complete construction of 5,000-km length road connecting 866 villages. Meanwhile, Ministry of Rural Development has relaxed the norms for construction of all-weather connectivity to unconnected villages in 15 Integrated Action Plan  districts of Balangir, Deogarh, Gajapati, Kalahandi, Keonjhar, Koraput, Malkangiri, Mayurbhanj, Nabarangpur, Nuapada, Kandhamal, Rayagada, Sambalpur, Sonepur and Sundargarh. Now, the villages having a population of 250 and above are eligible for connectivity under the scheme. Proposals for construction of 270 roads covering 1,057.35 km to connect 349 villages in Phase-1 and 266 roads covering 957.70 km to connect 337 habitations in phase-II were approved by the standing committee. In addition, digitisation of road network in 25 districts has been completed through technical support from Orissa Space Applications Centre. The Chief Secretary has advised the department to expedite the digitisation of the remaining roads and intensify the monitoring of incomplete projects.