BHUBANESWAR: Mukhyamantri Sadak Yojana (MSY) will be implemented from the current financial year with Rs 150 crore allotted for the scheme.
Rural Development Minister Badrinarayan Patra announced this in the Assembly on Friday while replying to the discussion on demand for grants of the department. An allocation of Rs 4,678.88 crore has been made for the Rural Development Department in the budget for 2014-15.
Patra said guidelines are being prepared for the MSY which will provide connectivity to the villages left out of the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY).
The Minister said 4500 km of roads will be constructed under PMGSY during 2014-15 to connect 1900 villages with an expenditure of `1,800 crore. During the year, 101 rural roads will also be upgraded with an allocation of Rs 57 crore.
As many as 46 bridges and 13 roads will be completed during 2014-15 with Rs 410 crore financial assistance from National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), he said.
In a bid to provide drinking water facility to rural areas, an allocation of `648.56 crore has been made for 2014-15.
The Minister said it has been targeted to install 35,000 tubewells and set up 2,200 piped water projects during the year. Besides, overhead tanks will be constructed in villages with drinking water facilities, he added.
Initiating the debate, Congress chief whip Taraprasad Bahinipati alleged that roads constructed by the department are getting damaged within two years due to lack of maintenance.
No department is taking responsibility for such roads, he said and demanded that provision should be made for regular repair of rural roads.
Radharani Panda (BJP) also expressed concern over lack of repair of roads in rural areas. Ranendra Pratap Swain (BJD) demanded that the State Government should create a separate cadre for the engineers working in the Rural Development Department for its smooth functioning.