BHUBANESWAR: The state government has exceeded its target by constructing rural roads of 2,189.72 km against the annual target of 2,000 km set by end of February.With the current pace of construction, the Rural Development department is expecting that the total length of new roads may cross the 2,500 km mark by the end of the current fiscal. The state has submitted a proposal to the Centre for construction of 3,200 km of roads to provide all-weather connectivity to about 40 habitations in the next financial year. In anticipation of approval from Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), the state government has made a budgetary provision of Rs 1,450 crore under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY).
As per the progress report, the state has completed construction of 67,598 km out of the 72,257 km road sanctioned by MoRD. The achievement is 93 per cent. As many as 16,382 habitations have been connected. In the PMGSY-III, the ministry had sanctioned 9,400 km since 2020-21 of which 9,222 km has been awarded and construction of 4,970 km have been completed. The state government has set an ambitious target to construct and improve 6,000 km of road across the state in the coming financial year under Mukhya Mantri Sadak Yojana (MMSY) with a budgetary support of Rs 2061.00 crore.
While Rs 650 crore has been proposed for new roads under MMSY in 2023-24 an amount of Rs 350 crore is provisioned for improvement of RD roads. In 2022-23 till February, 2023, the department has completed construction of 135 road projects with length of 725.51 km with an expenditure of Rs 825.65 crore. The department has completed construction of 25 road projects (147 km) with an expenditure of about Rs 30 crore under the state scheme connection of missing road links (CMRL) till February 2023. A provision of Rs 300 crore has been made for 2023-24 under CMRL. The government has also planned to construct 526 new bridges under Biju Setu Yojana (BSY) with an expenditure of Rs 1900.00 crore. Of the 2,157 bridge projects under the scheme, 1,254 have been competed.