The State Government has sought the assistance of central public sector units (CPSUs) for timely implementation of the rural road projects under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) in Maoist affected districts.
The State Government proposal was discussed at the meeting of the Empowered Committee of the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) on December 5 and the Ministry is considering to engage Central Public Works Department (CPWD) and National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC) in the integrated action plan (IAP) districts of the State where the progress is abysmally slow, official sources said.
The State had proposed the MoRD to adopt the Tripura model of the tripartite agreement for engaging CPSUs as project implementing agencies.
The Rural Development Department is preparing a list of projects for allocation to the central PSUs and the draft tripartite agreement which will be submitted to the Ministry, the sources said.
With PMGSY road projects worth `6,000 crore in hand, the State has the capacity to implement only half of the projects. The Ministry of Rural Development has been advising the State to increase the capacity of the implementing agencies and create more units.
Expressing concern over the poor capacity of the State agencies to implement the massive rural infrastructure programme, Union Rural Development Ministrer Jairam Ramesh had advised the State Government time and again to increase the number of project implementing units to at least 70 units.
Though the Rural Development department had submitted a proposal to the Government to increase the number of PIUs from 50 to 70, the Finance department approved creation of 10 more units after the Centre offered to assist the State in the execution of the road projects.
The Department has sanctioned additional 294 posts including 902 posts of junior engineers, 266 posts of assistant engineers and 60 posts of executive engineers. The executive engineer functions as the PIU head.
The empowered committee of the MoRD recently cleared 704 road projects covering 2409 kms at a cost of ` 1196 crore under PMGSY.
The State Government had submitted proposals for 1965.82 kms of roads with an estimated cost of ` 986.79 crore under normal PMGSY and 1017.30 kms at a cost of ` 509 crore under ADB assistance for the current financial year.
After the twin calamity of cyclone and flood, the State Government projected a requirement of ` 1637 crore for reconstruction and repair of about 6,150 kms of damaged rural roads to MoRD.