Rural road construction speed under PMGSY increases to 139 km per day

Road construction under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) has picked up pace to 139 km per day from the estimated construction speed under PMGSY of 133 kilometer (km) per day in 2016-17. Rural roads are mainly a state subject but PMGSY is a one-time special intervention of the government to provide rural connectivity by way of single all-weather road connectivity to eligible, unconnected habitations in the core network.

Rural Development Secretary, Amarjeet Sinha commenting on the development said that from 2011 to 2014, the roads in rural areas under the PMGSY were constructed at 70-75 km per day and in next two years 2014-16, it increased to 100 km per day and now roads are being constructed at 139 km per day in the first five months of the fiscal. Sinha further said the Centre has adopted green technologies such as use of waste plastic, fly ash, cold mix, jute and coir geo-textiles, copper and iron slag in the making of rural roads.

PMGSY programme foresees connecting all habitations with a population of 500 people and above as per 2001 census in plain areas and 250 people and above as per 2001 census in special category states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand. The habitations having a population of 100 and above and identified by Home Ministry as crucial, are also covered under the scheme.

The government has also launched the second phase of PMGSY-II which envisages consolidation of the existing rural road network to improve its overall efficiency. Besides, Union Rural Development Ministry has set the target of 48,000 km road construction in this financial year as against 36,000 km road construction in fiscal year 2015-16.