The Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways will shortly commence the work for construction of a new Expressway in the 26.60 kms stretch of Raipur-Durg section of National Highway 53 in the State.
The Ministry will also be seeking Consultancy services for Project Preparation, Feasibility Study, Preparation of DPR and comparative study of different alternatives for widening of 4 to 6 lane roads on various national highways in Chhattisgarh, officials stated.
last month, the Ministry had approved two major road projects worth `3,700 crore for Chhattisgarh.
The project was provided green signal during a high-level meeting held between Chief Minister Raman Singh and Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari during the former’s visit to New Delhi.
The Chief Minister also urged the Union Minister for providing national highway status to 1,367 km of roads in Chhattisgarh.
He also urged the Union Minister to permit the State Government for preparing the DPR of these roads so that the work could be swiftly completed. The Union Minister agreed to the Chief Minister’s proposal.
It may be recalled that the Asian Development Bank (ADB) had been helping Chhattisgarh government upgrade about 916 kilometers of roads in the State.
The works include development of new road sections, two laning work, constructing and strengthening culverts and bridges, officials stated.
Notably, new stretches of rural roads are rapidly coming up in Chhattisgarh with massive funding support from ADB, officials stated.
The ADB has provided lending support to Chhattisgarh for projects undertaken under Prime Minister’s Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY).
The international funding agency had been helping to either construct or upgrade 31,000 kms of rural roads in the states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradsh, Odisha, West Bengal and Assam nationally, officials stated.
Notably, the Chhattisgarh Government has already started taking steps to even settle the forest land disputes under the Forest Protection Act 1980 as early as possible for accelerating the process of laying of roads under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) (Prime Minister's Rural Roads Project), officials stated.
A time-bound action plan has been chalked out for various departments to settle the issues relating to forest land expeditiously, officials stated.
Chief Secretary Vivek Dhand in a circular issued last year had directed that all the road works should be completed in a time-bound manner.
The Chief Secretary said that the land area should be inspected by the Forest Department officer on the next day itself. The District Collector should be informed if there is any delay. The concerned Collector should settle the issue in within 10 days. The time-frame has been fixed as per the hectares of forest land.
The officers of Panchayat and Rural Development Department in a State-level Standing Committee of Panchayat and Rural Development Department chaired by the Chief Secretary in December last year had taken stock of the status of roads and structures being constructed under PMGSY.
It was informed in the meeting that 5124 permanent roads have been constructed in Phase 1 to 8 of the scheme. The total length of these roads is 22750 km. These include roads constructed in Phase 1 to 8 of the scheme besides roads constructed in different phases of Rural Road Connectivity Programme of the Asian Development Bank.
The construction of these roads has facilitated people of 7610 rural settlements for commuting in these all weather roads, it was informed.
In the meeting it was also informed that construction of 337 roads was completed at a cost of `715 crore under PMGSY in the financial year 2013-14. The length of these roads is 1292 km and their construction has linked 969 settlements.
As many as 37 roads have been sanctioned under the advance technology of PMGSY. Among these, construction of four roads has been completed while construction of 10 roads is under progress.
The process of tender agreement is completed for five roads while tenders for 18 roads are under process.