BHUBANESWAR: With the completion of only 33 bridges by end of August, the Rural Development department may miss the annual target to construct 280 bridges under the State-sponsored Biju Setu Yojana (BSY) in 2022-23.
The State government had made a budgetary allocation of Rs 1,688 crore for BSY of which Rs 952.86 crore is from its own resources while Rs 735.16 crore is a loan under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) from the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard).
The financial achievement of the department is nearly 17 per cent with the expenditure of Rs 160.76 crore out of Rs 952.86 crore non-RIDF projects and about 21 per cent with the expenditure of Rs 152.83 crore from RIDF projects worth Rs 735.16 crore, sources in the department said.
The physical progress is 14.62 per cent with the completion of 19 out of 130 bridges sanctioned under State funds and 9.33 per cent with the construction of 14 out of 150 bridges sanctioned under RIDF.
The government has so far sanctioned 1,790 bridges under BSY since the launch of the scheme during 2011-12. In the first year, 400 bridges were sanctioned which was subsequently scaled up to 1,332 in 2018-19 with a project cost of Rs 6,130.50 crore to provide all-weather connectivity to rural areas. Another 458 bridges were sanctioned in 2021-22.
As per the progress report of the department, the construction of 1,172 bridges under BSY has been completed by end of August and 416 are under different states of construction.
While 51 projects are in tendering stage, 151 projects are in different stages of approval. A few projects were dropped due to local issues while some are facing legal issues, the sources said. The projects sanctioned under BSY are to bridge the missing links on roads of the RD department and important panchayat Samiti roads of the Panchayati Raj department which are otherwise not eligible under Pradhan Matri Gram Sadak Yojana.