BHUBANESWAR: Two incidents - the killing of five persons by police at Gumudumaha village in Kandhmal and death of 19 children at Nagada in Jajpur district - had exposed poor road connectivity in rural Odisha.There are thousands of villages in the State which do not have an approach road. Over 12,000 habitations in Odisha lack proper road communication.
Official sources maintained that more than 1000 road projects started several years back are yet to be completed while construction of about 3000 roads have been deferred.
According to the State Government, condition of rural roads has improved a lot during the last 17 years. The Centre has so far provided `17,815 crore to the State by the end of last financial year since the launch of the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY).
Since rural connectivity is in focus, hundreds of road projects have been completed in the last two years. The State Government has been able to connect small villages having population of 100 and above under the Mukhya Mantri Sadak Yojana (MMSY).
MMSY, which is being implemented since 2015-16, has been able to connect 2911 such villages. A large number of rural market centres and local ‘Hats’ have been connected by the motorable rural roads.
The State Government has constructed 45,200 kms of rural roads with an investment of `17,100 crore and provided all weather connectivity to 15,841 villages. There were 29,109 villages in the State with all-weather roads by the end of 1999. The villages with all weather roads have increased to 44,950 by March, 2017.
Odisha is the fifth State in the country constructing maximum length of rural roads. The Centre has provided an incentive of `175.67 crore to the State during 2016-2017 in this regard.