BHUBANESWAR: After detecting deviation in construction of some rural roads under Pradhan Matri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) in Nayagarh and Puri districts, the Ministry of Rural Development has asked the state government to explain reason and the action taken against the official concerned and the executing agencies.
Deviation from the alignment approved in the detailed project report (DPR) came to the notice of the Ministry during analysis of Satellite images of the roads and comparing the data with the progress reported by the state government through OMMAS (Online Management, Monitoring and Accounting System) for PMGSY.
Odisha is one of the five states of the country where space technology was used to verify the progress of implementation of PMGSY roads with satellite images obtained from National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC).
As many as 31 roads of Nayagarh (20) and Puri (11) were taken up in the first phase for the study out of which 14 roads are analysed based on satellite data.
As per the analysis of the Centre for Geo-Informatics Application in Rural Development (C-GARD), Hyderabad, 7 roads in Nayagarh district are having variations in length out of total 13 roads analysed. In Puri district, similar problem was notices in one of the roads.
The issue was discussed in the general body meeting of the National Rural Road Development Agency (NRRDA) in New Deli on August 17. The state government was asked to explain the deviation from the approved length and submit a report on the action taken against such deviations before August 12.
As the state government is yet to submit its report, the MoRD has asked the Rural development department to send the action taken report by September 15 failing which the Ministry will taken appropriate action.
The MoRD signed an MoU with C-GARD in December last year for use of space technology to detect variance between the progress of implementation of the scheme and the progress reported electronically by the states, on a real time basis.
The objective of the programme is to check the feasibly of proposed roads, assess the physical progress of roads, to verify whether the road is constructed as per approved plan and actually connects the targeted habitations, official sources said.