Blaming the previous Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) governments for bad condition of roads in the State, Public Works Department Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, on Thursday claimed that it has made nearly 63 per cent roads in the state pothole-free and termed it as a record of sorts which the opposition parties dismissed as “mere eyewash”.
“It was a massive work which was done by our government but it will continue and it is our commitment to complete all the works after the monsoon. The last 15 years of the rule in UP had done nothing which resulted in such bad condition of the roads,” he said while confirming that 63 percents of roads all already made pothole free. On March 25, a week after taking oath as the chief minister, Yogi Adityanath had said in Gorakhpur that he has told the PWD officials to ensure that roads in the state are made pothole-free by June 15.
Maurya, who is also the BJP state president, announced that all accident-prone areas in the state would be taken care of within a couple of month so that no accident occurs while 73 roads comprising 6260 kms have been approved by the Centre to make them national highway. He also blamed the former SP government for the bad condition of roads, saying SP president Akhilesh Yadav and SP rebel leader Shivpal Singh Yadav have no moral right to question BJP government’s efforts.
“The SP government had taken the state backward by almost 30 years. Many of the Centre’s welfare measures were stopped because of political ego. A number of state highways could have been transformed into national highways, but there were no such efforts,” he said. “The work which Akhilesh and Mayawati could not do in so many years, we have done in less than 100 days,” the deputy chief minister said, adding the Adityanath government will bring out a white paper on its achievements since it assumed office on March 19.
Maurya claimed that against the total 1,21,034 kms of pothole roads in the state, 76,356 kms have been repaired which is around 63 per cent though he admitted that the government could not met the target. On Wednesday, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath too in Gorakhpur had admitted that the target to make all roads pothole free could not be fulfilled and it would be completed after the monsoon.
Addressing a press conference here on Thursday morning, Maurya said while the PWD completed repair in 82 per cent of its road, national highway completed 74 per cent, NHAI 81 per cent and PMGSY in 96 per cent but 9668 kms repair work by the irrigation department could not even started while the Mandi Parishad could only managed just 24 per cent of roads. “We will approach the departments who have failed to comply with our target,” the Deputy CM said.
PWD Additional Chief Secretary and Principal Secretary Sadakant said by October all roads in the state would be potholes free. “We are lagging in budget provisions hence there were some fund crunches. But after the July budget, the repairing work would speed up and by October, all roads would be repaired,” he added.
Meanwhile, the PWD Minister narrated in detail about the projects to be launched in the state and the projects cleared by the Central government, including several projects for Allahabad in view of coming Ardh Kumbh Mela in 2019. “We will go for MoU with the railways to speed up the Rail Over Bridge(RoBs) in the state while the doubling of the Rae Bareli- Allahabad rail track have been approved by the Railways. In Allahabad, an inner ring road of 76 kms would be constructed costing around Rs 3500 kms besides a new bridge over Ganga near Phaphamau costing around Rs 2460 crores,” he said.
Meanwhile, State Congress spokesperson Virendra Madan said, “The people
of Uttar Pradesh have now started realising that they have been duped by the BJP and each and every promise made either by the state or the central government remained nothing but a hollow promise.” Madan claimed that why one should talk of failure to make pothole roads, Yogi had completely failed to deliver good governance on law and order front, while the farmers had already started feeling cheated in the name of waiving of their loans etc.