Four BJP and its allies-ruled States, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, are among the six States that are yet to notify the rural road maintenance policy (RRMP) under the centre’s flagship Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) even as the deadline expired last December.
The other defaulter States are Maharashtra, Goa, Jammu & Kashmir, Telangana and Tripura. While majority of the States notified the policy in the last two years itself, the six States have failed to comply so far.
Underlining the need for such a policy, Alka Upadhyay, Joint Secretary (rural road connectivity) in the Rural Development Ministry, in separate letters to the defaulter States recently said, “It is necessary to maintain the huge network of the rural roads in good condition, at all the times, if these rural roads are to contribute towards sustainable eradication of poverty in our villages.” She noted that several reminders and letters have been written to the States in this regard.
The objective of the policy is to maintain rural roads as per predetermined specifications by optimal utilisation of resources. According to another senior official in the Ministry, in the absence of the maintenance policy, roads are neglected, eroded causing loss to the economy. He said that it was surprising that even Gujarat, which is said to be role model for other States in many sector, has failed in this area (notifying the RRMP)
So far, more than Rs 1,00,000 crore has been invested under the PMGSY, launched in 2000.
It is a one-time special intervention of the Central Government to provide rural connectivity, by way of single all-weather road to the eligible unconnected habitations in the core network. More than 4.81 lakh km of roads connecting 1.192 lakh habitations across the country were constructed under the PMGSY till June last year. The scheme envisages connecting all eligible unconnected habitations with a population of 500 persons and above as per 2001 census in plain areas and 250 persons and above as per 2001 census in special category states - Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand.
The Government has also launched the second phase of PMGSY-II, which envisages consolidation of the existing rural road network to improve its overall efficiency.
Early this year, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Modi Government signed a US$250 million loan to finance the construction of 6,254 kilometres all-weather rural roads in the States of Assam, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal under the PMGSY.
The programme is aimed at improving rural connectivity, facilitating safer and more efficient access to livelihood and socio-economic opportunities for rural communities through improvements to about 12,000 kilometres rural roads across the five States.
The RRMP has been framed by the National Rural Roads Development Agency (NRRDA) of the Ministry in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation for the road agencies in the States to have a clear understanding about expectations for rural road maintenance.