State utilizes 95% of funds under PMGSY

The Orissa government has utilized 95.29 per cent of the funds received under the Centrally sponsored Pradhan Mantri Grameen Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) till July-end.

Out of Rs 8104.59 crore received from the Government of India, the state has utilized Rs 7723.03 crore.

At a recent review meeting of PMGSY held under the chairmanship of the state Chief Secretary B K Patnaik, S N Tripathi, principal secretary (rural development) said that against the sanctioned length of 29875.12 km, 21168.49 km of roads have been completed. A total number of 5470 roads have been commissioned under the scheme.

It may be noted that there has been an almost five-fold increase in fund utilization under PMGSY over the past five years.

While in 2001-02, the financial achievement under the scheme was Rs 36.34 crore, it reached Rs 377.37 crore in 2005-06 and Rs 1924.25 crore in 2010-11.The surge in fund utilization has been possible because of close supervision and new initiatives like fixation of work targets adopted in the rural development department, said Tripathi.

Enthused over the achievement, the department of rural development has now set a target to cross Rs 2000 crore in terms of fund utilization in the current fiscal and complete construction of 5000 km of roads connecting 866 villages.

Meanwhile, the Union ministry of rural development has relaxed the norms for construction of all-weather roads to unconnected villages in 15 districts covered under the Integrated Action Plan (IAP).