Bengal to construct 13,000 km of rural roads: Minister

To improve the rural economy the West Bengal government would construct 13,000 kilometre of rural roads in the state.
West Bengal Panchayat and Rural Development Minister Subrata Mukherjee said the Mamata Banerjee government would spend Rs 3,100 crore as state's share to complete the Rs 7,800 crore project to construct 13,000 km rural roads.
"I have been able to extract sanction for more rural roads from the Centre. Instead of previous plan 7000 km, we will now build 13,000 km but we will have to shell out 40 per cent of the cost in the new norms," Mukherjee told PTI.

Earlier, entire funding for construction of rural roads could be recovered from the Centre but in the revised terms Centre has reduced its contribution to 60 per cent of the cost, he said.
To improve the rural economy the state government has decided to build rural roads almost double than its earlier plan, the minister said.
Mukherjee said the government was trying to complete the project as soon as possible. Panchayat polls in West Bengal are due next year.

The state government had engaged Central construction PSUs like NBCC and NPCC to execute the projects.
In 2011, the state government was able to get sanction for some 20,000 km of rural road sanction under the Prime Minister Gram Panchayat road scheme and out of that some 13,000 km of road projects had already been executed.

The Mamata Banerjee government would also provide Rs 2,700 crore to widen and renovate 3,000 km of rural roads.