Centre to provide connectivity to each cluster of villages: Singh

Tawang Nov 22 (UNI) Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh today said the Centre would provide road connectivity to each cluster of villages in the country having a total population of minimum 250, under the Centre's Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY).

This would be a major concession to the thinly populated hilly areas in the country, the minister said while inaugurating the two-day national workshop on Planning and construction of hill roads in rural areas, which began at Tawang, the remote Buddhist town on Sino-India border, official sources said.

The union minister asked the Arunachal Pradesh government to start some pilot projects for development of some cluster areas where families from thinly populated adjoining areas could shift and settle to enjoy the modern facility like school education for children, health centres, skill development centres and IT besides road connectivity and modes of modern transport, which could not be possible in each of the villages inhabited by 40 or less number of people.

'' Under the Prime Minister's financial package to Arunachal Pradesh, the cluster approach of development has already been extended to 513 border villages,'' he said adding, if the state government plans some pilot projects, the Centre would provide all support.

He informed that for construction of bridges, the span has been extended from 25 metres at present to 50 metres under the scheme.

Over 70 delegates and experts from 16 different states especially mountainous ones, including all the north eastern states, Jammu&Kashmir, Himachal, Uttarakhand, Chattisgarh are participating in the workshop.

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