BHUBANESWAR: The State Government is all set to prepare a strategic corridor development and village connectivity plan to improve road connectivity in the State.
The Government has directed Works Department to develop a comprehensive database of the road network while the Rural Development Department has been advised to prepare the village connectivity plan on the basis of the road network database.
Arckitechno Consultants, a private firm engaged by the State Government has developed Odisha road network database on the basis of Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping, traffic survey, socio-economic data and field level road inventory collected both from primary and secondary sources.
Chief Secretary JK Mohapatra, who reviewed the database at a high level meeting here recently, asked the Works Department to design a strategic corridor development plan taking into consideration the traffic requirement of upcoming industrial estates, production clusters and ports.
As per the database, out of 51,865 census villages in the State, around 94 per cent have road connectivity. While two per cent of the villages have track roads, efforts are underway to provide all-weather connectivity to the remaining four per cent villages.
The Rural Development Department was asked to prioritise the villages on the basis of population for road connectivity within definite time frame.
Presently, the State has around 3,594 kms of National Highway (NH), 5,125 kms of State Highway (SH), 2,805 kms of major district road (MDR).