BHUBANESWAR: The State Government will soon formulate a policy for maintenance and construction of rural roads in a planned and efficient way.A proposal in this regard was approved at the meeting of the Cabinet presided over by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday. A comprehensive road database will be created to carry out maintenance work. The database will consist of road inventory details, road section inventory and road condition index report for every rural road.
The road condition index of each rural road will be updated every year by the concerned departments.
An annual maintenance plan will also be prepared by the departments. A GIS-based rural road network map will be prepared and shared by Rural Development Department (the nodal department) with all user departments.Chief Secretary AP Padhi told media persons that annual maintenance plan will include routine and periodic maintenance, special repairs and flood damage/emergent repairs. A provision of `300 crores has been made in the State Budget for 2017-18 for maintenance and repair work.
Besides, the Rural Development Department has got an incentive of `175.67 crores from the Centre basing on the performance of the department under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) in 2016-17. The fund will be utilised for maintenance of PMGSY roads which have already completed five years.
The Cabinet approved cadre restructuring of the agriculture department officers. The Deputy Director of Agriculture (DDA) post has been upgraded to chief district agriculture officer in the rank of joint director level 2 while an agriculture officer will also be posted in every block. The cadre strength will, however, remain 1313.
Besides, in order to streamline the execution of electrical works in the building sector, it was decided to bring all sub-divisional and section officers of GED wing of the works department under the direct administrative control of roads and building divisions.