Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Thursday instructed officials to ensure that roads are constructed with good quality and completed on time in the State. Pending road projects should be completed expeditiously and special care should be taken of its usefulness in the construction of new roads, he said while holding a meeting of the Road Construction Department here on Thursday.
On this occasion, he reviewed the progress of various road projects, work plans related to new road construction and revenue collection.
The CM asked the departmental officers to prepare an action plan for the construction of a dedicated road in the mines area.
In the construction of such roads, special care should be taken that it does not affect the dense population or villages much. It was told by the department that toll plazas are proposed on some roads in the State.
Toll tax will be charged from goods vehicles here. In this regard, a survey of 425 roads length of 4,856 kms has been done. The CM said the roads for toll plazas should be selected in such a way that it does not burden the masses.
Apart from this, the quality of such roads should be better and how much revenue can be earned from here, it should also be assessed closely.
The CM said there is a lot of potential for development of the industrial corridor on Govindpur-Jamtara-Dumka-Sahebganj Road. Select some areas in this road and prepare an action plan to develop them as warehouses, logistics centres or industries.
He said this road can become the lifeline of Santal Pargana area.
Soren said the problems related to forest clearance and land acquisition for road projects should be resolved at the earliest.
He asked the department to review the matters related to land acquisition every 15 days and coordinate with the concerned departments for this.
The CM said due to widening of roads in the forest area, there are many technical hurdles in land acquisition. In such a situation, assess the usefulness of the single lane roads here.
After this, on the basis of priority, there should be an initiative to widen these roads or to improve the existing roads, so that people do not face difficulty in traffic.
He said plans should also be made to build helipads around important tourist places and mines areas of the State. This will also help in curbing Naxal activities.
It was told by the department that some 612.65 km road plan has been approved for the national highway in the State in the last four years.
At the same time, the process of sending DPR of 184.23 km by June 30, 2021, 307.18 km by July 15, 2021 and 180 km road plan by July 31, 2021 has been started.
These road schemes have a budget of about Rs 3,160 crore. At the same time, 17 road projects have been sent for approval under the State
Road Construction Department and ten projects are to be decided at the level of the State Empowered Committee.
Chief Secretary Sukhdev Singh, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Rajiv Arun Ekka, Secretary to Chief Minister Vinay Kumar Choubey, Secretary of Road Construction Department Sunil Kumar, Engineer in Chief Murari Bhagat, Chief Engineer KK Lal, Chief Engineer Arvind Pandey and Chief Engineer NP Sharma were present in the meeting.