By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 4 Oct: The government has claimed that, during the past three years, since Pushkar Singh Dhami took over as Chief Minister, 519 new roads with a total length of 1481 kilometres have been constructed in the state under PMGSY, connecting 35 additional villages with a population of more than 250.
Commenting on this, CM Dhami has asserted that, with the inspiration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, work is being done rapidly on the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) to connect even more villages with roads. He added that roads are the basis of progress, claiming that the government is determined to provide roads to every village. Efforts are also being made to provide roads to the remaining villages deprived of road connectivity.
The government has released certain figures in this respect. It has claimed that during the three-year tenure of the Dhami government, 519 new roads and 195 bridges with a total length of 1481 kilometres have been constructed under the PMGSY scheme. In addition, 61 rural roads with a total length of 159 kilometres have also been upgraded. A total amount of Rs 2,310 crores has been spent on the construction of these roads and bridges.
The government also claimed that the movement of villagers has been facilitated by connecting 35 habitations with a population of more than 250 to the roads. Under the scheme, the works of the first and second phases are now nearing completion. Under the third phase of PMGSY, approval of Rs 1,824 crores has been received from the Government of India for upgrading previously constructed roads. Under this, a total road length of 2,288 kilometres will be upgraded. Not only this, an additional approval of Rs 119 crores has been granted by the Centre to connect eight habitations deprived of roads under the Vibrant Village Scheme. After this, only 1,796 habitations/ settlements with a population of less than 150 remain in the state where roads have not reached so far.
It may be recalled that the PMGSY was launched in December 2000 by the then Atal Bihari Vajpayee government with the main objective of connecting maximum villages with roads. 90 percent funding under this scheme is provided by the Centre while the remaining 10 percent of funding is managed by the state government. Since the beginning of the scheme, a total of 2,329 roads and 312 bridges have been constructed in Uttarakhand. A total expenditure of Rs 10,183 crores has been incurred under the scheme so far, as a result of which 1846 habitations or settlements with a population of more than 250 have been connected by road.
