'Target of roads in Vidarbha short by 18,455 kms'

The Vidarbha Statutory Development Board has found the target of roads for Vidarbha region for 2001-21 period was short by 18,455 kms.
Board's member M G Kimmatkar, citing data released last year in March, apprised that not only was Vidarbha short-changed by a compressed target, the execution rate itself was worst for the region as compared to every other part of the state.
"By March, 2015, while the work completed was 100 per cent for Marathwada, 96.31 per cent for rest of Maharashtra, it was just 70 per cent for Vidarbha. Thus, the total developmental backlog for roads in Vidarbha, including the 18,455 kms swallowed by the state, has mounted to a steep 25,100 kms," Kimmatkar told reporters here.

"Removing this backlog will be next to impossible," he added.
At the current construction cost of Rs 55 lakh per km, the total cost of building 25,100 kms adds up to a whopping Rs 23,955 crore which the cash-strapped state can ill-afford to spend, he said.
He said most of these roads would have connected villages and made life better for people living in Naxal-hit districts of the region.

"Of the state's 38 talukas affected by left-wing extremist violence, 37 are in Vidarbha. For farmers, carrying ploughs to fields is a tough task for want of roads in most of these villages. The injustice against Vidarbha by policymakers continues," Kimmatkar lamented.

Within the region, Amravati division has a poor road execution record as per PWD data available up to March, 2015. For the 46,027 square-kilometres land area of the division, the road target fixed was 42,340 kms. Of this, only 28,286 kms was completed, barely 67 per cent, he said.
Nagpur division fares relatively better with 72 per cent achievement of the target of 51,900 kms, Kimmatkar, a former MoS for Finance, added.