BHUBANESWAR: Even as the State Government has made a budgetary provision of `250 crore under Mukhya Mantri Sadak Yojana (MMSY), an ambitious scheme to upgrade rural road infrastructure, the actual requirement will be `907 crore for the current fiscal.
The Rural Development Department has identified 408 roads in 29 districts for construction under the State scheme which will provide all-weather connectivity to habitations not covered under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY).
As many as 8874 habitations of the State are not eligible under PMGSY programme as per the core network prepared for PMGSY work by the Centre. These habitations will be covered by MMSY.
Presiding over the first State level high power committee meeting for approval of project proposals under MMSY, Chief Secretary GC Pati on Monday asked the Rural Development Department to explore the possibility of sourcing funds from National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) for construction of road projects.
Since Nabard has financial limitation for sanction of roads and bridges under rural infrastructure development fund (RIDF), the Assembly Standing Committee on Rural Development Department had recommended to the State Government to make a provision of `1000 crore from its own resources.
Launching the scheme last year, the State Government had made a provision of `150 crore. Though the primary objective of the scheme is to provide single connectivity to unconnected habitations having more than 100 population, the Government is yet to complete a single road project under the scheme.
Meanwhile, habitations having more than 100 population in 38 Left Wing Extremist-affected blocks have become eligible under PMGSY. All such habitations in Malkangiri district are covered under PMGSY and tendering process has been completed, said Rural Development Secretary PK Mohapatra.
The Chief Secretary asked the Department to use Odisha Sampad Atlas to identify gaps in rural connectivity with special emphasis on districts in tribal sub-plan area. He further directed to update data available in Odisha Sampad database.
Block level resources atlas named as Odisha Sampad generated by ORSAC through GIS database generation is now working in web mode.
The Department was asked to integrate the data on rural roads and bridges with the asset management system software developed by the Works Department.