Centre has set an eye on consolidation of 1,25,000 km routes under PMGSY: Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti in Rajya Sabha

Ravi S Singh

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Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 1

The Centre has set its eyes on consolidation of 1,25,000 Km through routes and major rural links at an estimated cost of Rs 80,250 crore.

Union Minister of State for Rural Development, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti informed Rajya Sabha in a written reply that against the allocated target of 1,25,000 Km, 77,129 Km road length has already been sanctioned at an estimated cost of Rs. 51,881 crore as per the state-wise details given in the Annexure.

Punjab accounts for 2084 Kms, Haryana for 1906 Kms, Himachal Pradesh for 3,125 KMs of total length of road sanctioned for consolidation in the country under PMGSY-III.

PMGSY-III was launched in the year 2019 for consolidation of 1,25,000 Km through routes and major rural links connecting habitations, inter-alia, to Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs), Higher Secondary Schools and Hospitals.

Geographic Information System (GIS) is used in selection and verification of proposals under the programme.

The rural road network and habitations have been digitized on GIS.

A geo-tagging based mobile survey was conducted to identify important rural facilities and points of interest such as schools, hospitals, and markets and were Geo-tagged.

A state of the art network planning algorithm called “Trace Map” was developed by the Ministry to identify and rank rural roads on the basis of the population depending on such roads by tracing the route from each rural habitation to its nearest facilities and then aggregating this information to identify the importance of each and every road segment across rural India.

Jyoti further said that proposals submitted by the States are further audited using satellite imagery to verify whether road proposals are meeting objectives of PMGSY-III.

As per the guidelines of PMGSY, maintenance of roads constructed under the programme is the responsibility of the state governments.

Also, all road works are covered by initial five year maintenance contracts to be entered into along with the construction contract, with the same contractor, as per the standard bidding document.

Maintenance funds to service the contract are required to be budgeted by the State governments and placed at the disposal of the State Rural Roads Development Agencies (SRRDAs) in a separate maintenance account.

On expiry of the five year post construction maintenance, PMGSY roads are required to be placed under zonal maintenance contracts consisting of five year maintenance including renewal as per maintenance cycle, from time to time, which are also financed by the state governments.

Jyoti further said that no roads can be taken up for consolidation under PMGSY-III before completion of 10 years of design life.

PMGSY-III is for upgradation and consolidation of through routes and major rural links meeting the programme objectives; maintenance of old roads in not covered under PMGSY-III.

However, roads being constructed under PMGSY-III are to be maintained by State/ UT governments as mentioned above.