Boost to rural roads, drains in 1,000 villages

The Andhra Pradesh government plans to provide rural connectivity in 14 districts across the state. The project has been linked to the Centre's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). The government issued a GO on March 3, extending the project to 14 districts, which would get internal roads and drains in the next two years.

The project would provide these facilities in Krishna, Guntur, Prakasam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, Mahabubnagar, Rangareddy, Medak, Nizamabad, Adilabad, Karimnagar, Warangal, Nalgonda and Khammam districts. It covers five scheduled castes and scheduled tribes colonies in each of the erstwhile block in each district.

According to an official estimate, about 1,000 villages in the 14 districts will get their internal roads and drains provided under the scheme in the next two years.

The project is to be executed in two phases and formation of gravel top for internal roads in the selected habitations comes in the first phase.

The second phase includes formation of cement concrete roads and construction of drains. As far as fund utilisation is concerned, 60 per cent is to be spent on wages for the workers and 40 per cent on the material. The funding for the project comes from the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPlads), MLAlads, MLClads, general funds of zilla parishad, mandal parishad and gram panchayat, apart from MGNREGS.

“We have received the copy of the GO and we are yet to start the process for identification of the habitations,” said MNREGS Krishna district project director, V Hanuma Nayak.

“We have about 16 erstwhile blocks in Krishna district and five habitations in each of these blocks would get the road connectivity, which would change the face of the rural life,” Nayak said.