Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi has directed the Department of Rural Development to ensure qualitative and quantitative improvement in executing the rural road projects in the
State.
Padhi , chairing a review meeting here at the State Secretariat on Wednesday, also appreciated the achievement of the State Government for earning the ‘leading State’ tag under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY).
He said the State has been provided `175-core incentive for its achievement in last fiscal for constructing more roads. He directed the department officials to expedite completion of nearly 600 km of roads by the month-end which were targeted for the current fiscal (2016-17).
RD Chief Engineer Bharat Chandra Pradhan had informed that as much as 5,500-km road construction was targeted during 2016-17 to connect nearly 1,400 villages.
Rural Development Principal Secretary Madhusudan Padhi presented the statistics on rural road construction at the meeting.
As many as 12,985 of the total 16,396 approved villages and hamlets have been connected by over 40,000 km of roads at a cost of `17,000 crore. The Union Government provides 60 per cent of the costs.
Fixing a target for 2017-18 financial year, the Chief Secretary asked the officers to construct as much as 6,000 km of roads under the PMGSY to provide connectivity to 6,000 more villages.
Rural Development Secretary Madhusudan Padhi said a detailed project report is being prepared for construction of roads to connect 506 more villages and added that as many as 151 projects have been submitted to the Union Government along with geo-map for approval.
“Reports on the remaining 343 projects will be submitted to the Centre in two phases by June and December, respectively,” Padhi added.