The State Government has emphasised on completion of construction of annually targeted 8,000 km of rural roads under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) by March 31, 2018.
It was decided at a review meeting taken by Rural Development Department Secretary Bishupada Sethi on Friday. While Engineer-in-Chief and Rural Works Chief Engineer were present, the Superintending and Executive Engineers participated through videoconferencing from their respective district headquarters.
According to information furnished by Executive Engineers out of annual target of 7,258 km roads of estimated cost of Rs 3,132 crore, 4,498-km roads have been completed with an expenditure of Rs 2,021 crore by February 23, 2018.
Since the State is now maintaining the leading position in completing targeted roads in the country, the Central Government had revised the target for Odisha to 10,000 km during 2017-18.
All the programme implementing units (PIUs) were informed about their individual enhanced targets for completion of 10,000 km roads during the month of January 2018. It was also noticed that some of the divisions have made very low expenditure during the preceding month which confirmed that either no work has been executed or payment has not been made to the executants.
Further, the review was made basing on achievement made by EEs in respect of completion of length with updation of OMMAS during last 19 days of the current month of February 18. The OMMAS is web-based software for management, monitoring and accounting of the projects.
Sethi emphasised on preparation of micro plan by the PIUs and he was hopeful that at least 8,000-km roads would be completed by end of March.
The SEs were asked to monitor the progress on regular basis and submit the consolidated progress achieved by respective divisions to Chief Engineer PMGSY by 7 pm daily.
The Secretary announced that the best performing three divisions would be awarded this year.