NEW DELHi: With the motto of last mile delivery, the government has connected by road 60 per cent of habitation in the 35 Naxal-affected districts in the country, while the remaining will be joined by March 2019.
The maximum of such habitation is in Bihar followed by Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Maharashtra and Telangana.
"15,971 habitations in the 35 left-wing extremist districts were selected under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), out of which 9,573 are already connected by road," a senior government official told PTI.
Under this scheme, the government is connecting all habitations which have a population of 100 or above in these districts.
"We want last mile delivery, whether its government schemes or benefits. Therefore, rural roads are very essential as they are the basis of development," the official said.
Over 4.81 lakh km of roads connecting 1.192 lakh habitations across the country were constructed under PMGSY till June 30.
Rural road is a state subject and PMGSY is a one-time special intervention of the government to provide rural connectivity, by way of single all-weather road to the eligible unconnected habitations in the core network.
The programme envisages connecting all eligible unconnected habitations with a population of 500 persons and above as per 2001 census in plain areas and 250 persons and above in special category states -- Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand.