Nitish Kumar launches rural road projects worth over Rs 15,192 crore; 'will provide more rural roads if voted to power'

PATNA: Bihar CM Nitish Kumar on Thursday launched a total of 14,405 rural road projects, worth over Rs 15,192 crore, through video-conferencing from a programme held at ‘Nek Samvad’ hall at his official residence here.
While launching the projects, the CM asked the officials to complete all the remaining 182 rural road projects under the Mukhya Mantri Tola Sampark Yojana by coming October, as the schedule for the assembly elections would be announced in the month of September.
State assembly polls are due in the month of October-November.
While addressing the programme, the CM sought a clear-cut assurance from the rural works department (RWD) secretary Pankaj Kumar Pal and the department’s engineers whether they would complete all the remaining 182 projects of rural roads by coming October or not.
As the RWD minister Shailesh Kumar intervened and tried to give an assurance to the CM on his behalf, Nitish retorted back, “Mantri Ji, you will not be in the position of executing the works as a minister till October as the schedule for the assembly polls will be announced in the month of September. And after that, there will be a model code of conduct. ---- Let the officer give assurance.”
Later, the RWD secretary Pal gave a categorical assurance to the CM for completing the remaining projects by the month of coming October.
The CM also said that his government would bring more new projects of rural roads for linking village-to- village, village roads to national highways and the village roads to the state highways; “if people of the state give me one more opportunity to serve the state after the coming assembly polls.”
“I have several projects in the mind. I will bring more new road projects in the rural sector, if voted to power once again,” Nitish said.
The CM also said he had already announced plans to provide irrigation water to all farm land across the state, if voted to power in the coming assembly polls.
Nitish further asked the RWD engineers to conduct a realistic survey of all rural roads to find out which road needs to be connected to the nearby national or state highways, so that maximum villages of the area could be benefitted. “Also find out which rural road needs to be connected with another rural road to shorten distance between villages of a particular region,” the CM said.
He also called the RWD engineers to maintain the quality in the construction of the roads and ensure their proper and timely maintenance. He said, the road maintenance works should be executed by the departmental engineers.