SANJEEV KUMAR PATRO n
Despite over 47 per cent of rural habitations in Odisha having no road network, rural roads, constructed by the State Government with the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development’s (NABARD) assistance under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF), have been quite dismal.
Sample this. In the year 2014-15, NABARD sanctioned Rs 451 crore for constructing 55 road projects measuring to over 495 km in length and the bank also disbursed Rs 583 crore to the State Government last fiscal year in ongoing tranches. But the outcome drew a perfect blank because neither was a single project been taken up, nor a km length was laid off last fiscal. The worse story is this is not an aberration as even in 2013-14, of the sanctioned road projects numbering 55 with a plan to lay road length of 516 km, the outcome was complete zero.
The State Rural Development (RD) Department could lay only 16 km of road length from the total planned length of 642 km in 2012-13. The consolidated data with the NABARD shows that of the planned road length of 1,653 km, Odisha could see materialisation of mere 16 km between 2012 and 2015. That means the completion rate has been below 1 per cent.
However, this is in stark contrast to the pace of work in neighbouring States like Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal. Jharkhand is the only Maoist affected State that shows a poor realisation rate comparatively but a notch up Odisha. While AP had laid over 20 per cent of the planned road length, Chhattisgarh successfully constructed around 24 per cent or around 1,400 km length of the planned rural road length of over 5,600 km. The NABARD data shows that West Bengal laid around 35 – 38 per cent of the planned road length of around 2,058 km in 2012 - 14.
Rural Development Minister Badri Narayan Patra, however, attributed this snail’s pace to Maoist problem. No private contractor or infra agency is willing to take up road construction works in interior pockets of the State. “We have recently requested the Centre to utilise the services of Central PSU to pace up the languishing rural roads projects in the State. Union Rural Development Ministry would soon send a team to the Maoist affected districts, whose number is 14-15, in the State where the progress of road construction is virtually in limbo,” Patra explained. He further informed that the National Bridge Construction Company has agreed to take up road and bridge projects under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) phase – 1.
The NABARD sources, however, blamed the indolent road works in Odisha to procedural delays in tenders and selection of roads along with lack of sufficient plan support from State at times for the sanctioned projects. It needs to be mentioned that MlAs propose the road projects to Rural Development Department for consideration under the RIDF.