Ministry of Rural Development29-July, 2009 18:9 IST
Rural Roads - connecting the people

The Ministry of Rural Development has connected 31924 habitations by constructing 85,405.27 km. rural roads till March, 2009 under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), a flagship scheme  under the Bharat Nirman component of Rural Development. At the same time, the ministry has cleared project proposals for 1,00,215 road works measuring 3,88,498.03 km. and valued at Rs. 1,05,721.34 crore by  March, 2009. The program took off in the year 2004-05 with the construction of 15,464 km road in rural areas and  connected 3,195 habitations with all weather roads. During 2005-06 under the program 22, 891 km road construction led approach to 8202 habitations. It touched another mile stone in 2006-07 when 10,801 rural hamlets were connected through 30,710 km of new roads. Again in 2007-08 41,231 km road construction made it possible to reach 11,336 habitations. In the last financial year  2008-09, 14454 habitations were connected through the construction of 52,404 km of roads.

  The rural road construction work is accomplished through National Rural Road Development Agency (NRRDA). In  view of the need to reach out to the last mile the  Government has increased by 59% to Rs 12,000 crore the allocation under  the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) for the financial Year 2009-10  for the  construction of roads in rural areas .The allocation  is expected to facilitate more and more construction of rural roads and enhance rural connectivity by making possible the reach of  rural products to other parts of the country round the year.

 With the increase in the prices of inputs for the PMGSY projects the cost of road works has also gone up during the last five years. The State-wise average cost per km of road works under PMGSY, year-wise as per the   Ministry of Rural Development is as under:

Rs in Lakhs/km

State

2004-05

2005-06

2006-07

2007-08

1

Andhra Pradesh

 

13.99

19.14

25.47

2

Arunachal Pradesh

 

31.24

45.96

 

3

Assam

32.57

44.99

54.27

57.92

4

Bihar

 

 

 

42.68

5

Chattisgarh

 

23.18

28.65

28.93

6

Goa

25.07

 

 

 

7

Gujarat

17.13

15.89

17.25

17.28

8

Haryana

21.97

23.28

32.26

41.17

9

Himachal Pradesh

 

22.66

21.24

23.41

10

Jammu & Kashmir

30.89

 

42.64

55.19

11

Jharkhand

 

23.73

 

29.74

12

Karnataka

 

17.26

19.98

26.78

13

Kerala

29.30

 

29.85

40.12

14

Madhya Pradesh

 

19.81

24.08

28.10

15

Maharashtra

16.88

 

18.23

31.89

16

Manipur

 

 

27.37

 

17

Meghalaya

 

32.28

37.52

 

18

Mizoram

 

24.69

 

36.84

19

Nagaland

 

17.98

 

27.04

20

Orissa

24.24

29.35

36.16

40.35

21

Punjab

18.80

 

37.32

45.06

22

Rajasthan

 

17.93

17.02

20.05

23

Sikkim

 

43.67

46.09

45.51

24

Tamil Nadu

 

 

20.53

 

25

Tripura

 

48.91

60.97

61.21

26

Uttar Pradesh

 

23.82

28.29

34.22

27

Uttaranchal

 

17.35

22.81

29.96

28

West Bengal

 

31.68

38.86

36.89

Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) is one of the Flagship programme    under the Bharat Nirman concept of development launched by the Ministry of Rural Development. The sole objective is to provide all weather road connectivity to rural habitations with a population of 500 persons and above (250 persons and above in respect of hill States, the tribal and the desert areas)  with an  all-weather road . A total of 66,802 habitations was proposed to be covered under Bharat Nirman. Subsequently, based on ground verification by States, 54,648 unconnected habitations were found eligible to be connected under the program.

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AKT/ST/SAK   


(Release ID :51196)