No more free rural roads for the States under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). Soon, they will have to share the fund burden for construction of rural roads with the cash-starved Centre revising the guidelines for the yet-to-be-kicked off second phase of the rural road scheme.
So far, the Central Government has been entirely funding the scheme.As per the new proposed guidelines framed by the Union Rural Development Ministry for the PMGSY-II, the cost sharing for the construction of a rural road would be on 75:25 basis between the Centre and the States. For special areas, such as hill States of Uttarakhand and Jammu & Kashmir and Naxal-hit States, it would be 90:10.
To meet the need for funds, the Ministry has suggested that the States look for loans from the funding agency, NABARD, or levy additional taxes and utilise mandi-related revenues besides other such means. For the roads catering to mining vehicles’ traffic, States can opt to levy mineral cess, it has maintained.
The move follows the recommendation of a working group of the Planning Commission which noted that the present source of funding was insufficient to meet the target for roads’ constructions under the scheme which envisaged providing all-weather roads to every habitation with 500 or more population across the country. The PMGSY was conceived by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2000.
The guidelines also mandate the allocation of fund for PMGSY-II to be within 15-20 per cent of the annual PMGSY budget of the Rural Development Ministry during the 12th Plan, so as to adequately focus on the PMGSY-I projects as well.
Moreover, a State/UT can join the phase II only after 100% of the new connectivity and 90% of upgradation work under PMGSY-I is awarded. Besides, there must be a commitment for crediting requisite installments of the State share before release of corresponding installments of the Central share is made. Maintenance and renewal of PMGSY-I roads as per PMGSY guidelines is also a prerequisite.
This is being done in view of the poor performance of the PMGSY-I, which got stuck for want of funds. So far, only 70 per cent of the work has been completed, whereas the programme should have ended in 2007 itself. It would now be completed by 2017.
As per an estimate, Rs 2 lakh crore is needed to meet the target of rural road construction during the 12th Five Year Plan. However, only a paltry fund of Rs 20,000 crore was made available in 2011-12.
Moreover, the State Governments’ failure to give the desired attention to the maintenance of roads constructed under the PMGSY has led to erosion of assets created under different programmes. The sustainability of assets created has not been ensured.
“In this backdrop, the need for consolidation of the existing network was felt to ensure that it fulfills the primary objective of connectivity along with mobility to the extent possible for the local community and enable economical transportation of goods and for services to provide better livelihood opportunities as a part of poverty reduction strategy. This is now proposed through PMGSY-II,” the guidelines add.
It further adds, under PMGSY-II, the target length proposed for upgradation would be taken as 25 per cent of the PMGSY-I upgradation per se target for each State and UT in the country.
Officials in the Rural Development Ministry said that since 2000, the projects for 1,09,010 habitations have been sanctioned out of total 1,36,464 eligible habitations by clearing the proposals for 4,20,637 km of roads. In order to achieve the targets, merely Rs. 84,731 crore were released upto March 2011 against the sanctioned projects cost of Rs 1,18,949 crore.