Govt to spend Rs 48,000 cr on rural road connectivity

New Delhi, May 23 (UNI) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the Government has prepared a time-bound business plan under Bharat Nirman to provide rural road connectivity to 66,000 villages in the country at an estimated cost of Rs 48,000 crore.

''To ensure full funding of the programme, we have not only expanded the funds available under the Prime Minister's Gram Sarak Yojna (PMGSY), but also created a special window under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) to be looked after by National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD),'' Dr Singh said while inaugurating the two-day 'National Conference on Rural Roads' here.

Dr Singh said while the Central Government has been supportive in funding these programmes, the state governments have to make comensurate efforts to ensure that timely completion of projects and cost-effective and good quality work is under taken.

The Prime Minister emphasised on the need for quality benchmarks and quality assurance for rural roads, as established for the national highways.

He said corruption in road construction projects has spread like cancer to every corner of the country, as a result a major chunk of the roads gets washed away after every monsoon and crores of rupees spent on them and their maintenance is wasted.

Dr Singh, however, complimented the Ministry of Rural Development towards ensuring quality norms on rural roads.

He said, ''We need to evolve cost-effective technologies for construction of rural roads and use of locally available materials should be encouraged.'' ''So far we have not succeeded in promoting use of cost effective technologies which mostly remain as models and prototypes in research and development institutions,'' he said, adding that a policy and institutional framework were needed for maintaining these alternatives for rural roads.

He stressed on making road construction as labour intensive as possible. It has been successfully demonstrated in other countries that intermediate, labour-based methods can be used for constructon of rural roads without compromising with quality.

Such methods increase the potential in road construction by at least five times.

This is where a synergy between Bharat Nirman and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP) could be established, he added.

The Prime Minister said regular maintenance and upkeep of rural roads is a necessary pre-condition for sustaining the benefits that roads bring to rural communities.

UNI