The Union Ministry of Rural Development has approved the proposals of the State Government for construction of 788 roads covering 2,740 km and 17 bridges under the Integrated Action Plan (IAP) in the cyclone-affected districts under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) at a cost of Rs 1,385 crore.
This was revealed by Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh in a letter to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday.
Prior to this, the Ministry had sanctioned Rs 2,453 crore during the current fiscal for construction of 3,924 km of rural roads. Besides, the Ministry, during 2012-13, had sanctioned Rs 2,445 crore for construction of 5,189 km of rural roads.
Stating that the cost of construction has gone up over the last two years due to scarcity of conventional materials for road construction, Ramesh requested the Chief Minister to explore the possibility of using industrial wastes and consider application of new technologies like soil stabilisation in road construction to reduce costs and save the environment.
For effective implementation of the scheme, Ramesh said the State is required to rationalise the workload among the project implementation units (PIUs). He also said that since the State has proposed to engage Central agencies to implement the PMGSY works in the IAP districts, it should submit a formal proposal to this effect to the Ministry at the earliest.
“Besides, for quality monitoring of the works, the State Government should expedite second-tier quality inspection in some selected districts by engaging at least two institutions. The institutional monitoring should be actively encouraged,” Ramesh said.
He also said that since cyclones and floods are recurring phenomena in Odisha, the Ministry has advised the State Government to seek technical advice from geotechnical experts on the design of roads and bridges in consultation with the National Rural Roads Development Agency (NRRDA) to minimise the effects of such natural disasters.