31,000-km-long roads in rural areas by 2010-end

PATNA: Rural works minister Brishen Patel said here on Wednesday that a total of 31,000-km-long roads would be constructed in rural areas under
the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) by 2010-end.

Under the PMGSY, rural roads totalling 38,000 km were supposed to be built after obtaining an approval from the central government. Of this, the central and the state government agencies were to construct 19,000-km stretch each from 2008 onwards.

The state government agencies have already constructed 4,000-km-long roads in rural areas in a year. The tender for construction of 10,000-km-long rural roads were issued in a record 10 days on August 15. The process was curtailed by three to six months. Earlier, this much time was required only to process the tender. The state government also attracted contractors by providing Rs 658 crore towards revision of the contract terms to neutralize cost escalation of the projects, Patel added.

The minister said that the rural works department (RWD) would invite a tender for the construction of the remaining 5,000 km on October 30 and finalize tender by November 15 with the help of a centralized processing programme linked to computers.

Patel said that the central agencies had completed construction of 5,000-km-long rural roads under the PMGSY between 2004 and August 2009. The central agencies awarded tender for construction of 7,000-km-long rural roads, the work for which has already been started. The central agencies are yet to award the contracts for the remaining 7,000-km stretch, the process for which is quite slow, he added.

As the central agencies had been slow in constructing rural roads, the state government had urged the central government in 2008 to assign the job of construction of 19,000-km-long road to the state agencies. The Centre granted its approval for the same.

The minister said that CM Nitish Kumar had raised this matter at the National Development Council meeting in 2008.

RWD executive engineer K N Prasad told TOI that 38 quality control labs had been created in all the districts of the state to test the quality of the materials utilized in construction of rural roads. He added that a central laboratory is already functioning in Patna.

Source: Times of India, Patna, 8 October 2009