Centre to upgrade 50,000 km under PMGSY-II

The Government of India is upgrading and constructing nearly 50,000 km of rural roads under phase-II of the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana-II during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-2017). The entire phase will stretch over 16 years and is estimated to cost Rs.47,000 crore.
While PMGSY–II is aimed at improving the overall efficiency of the existing rural road network, it will by and large upgrade only selected rural roads based on their economic potential and to what extent they can facilitate growth of rural market centres and rural hubs. The scheme will primarily help states like Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab and Rajasthan which have not benefited from the Yojana so far. The government had allocated Rs.21,700 crore towards PMGSY in Budget 2013-14.

The central government is already sanctioning funds for rural road projects under PMGSY-II. Last week, the government sanctioned around Rs.489 crore to Maharashtra for improving 829 km of rural roads. The districts of Solapur (126 km), Pune (88 km), Latur (71 km) and Osmanabad (53 km) are the largest beneficiaries.

Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh wrote to Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan stating that Batch II of the state’s proposal under PMGSY-II, for 227 roads spanning 1,550 km, would be taken up during the next meeting of the Empowered Committee scheduled to be held on January 7, 2014.

Interestingly, Maharashtra has received little central assistance under PMGSY compared to other states on the pretext that road connectivity in the state was satisfactory. However, Chavan pursued the issue of central funding for rural roads in Maharashtra. Following this, the Ministry of Rural Development introduced PMGSY-II to enable states like Maharashtra to improve their existing rural road network. The state is expected to construct and upgrade a total 2,600 km of rural roads under this phase of the project.

The government hopes to complete PMGSY-II over a period of 16 years or until year 2027-28. This would include upgradation (year 1), five-year maintenance (years 2 to 6), renewal (year 7) and another five-year maintenance (years 8 to 12) totalling a 12-year cycle for Batch-I. It is proposed to divide the project into five batches, commencing in years 1 to 5 and completing in years 12 to 16.

While Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, launched in 2000, is a 100 per cent centrally funded programme, PMGSY-II is on cost sharing basis between the central and state governments in the ratio of 75:25. Central funding is to the tune of 90 per cent for special category states.

At present, the number of eligible unconnected habitations is approximately 1.79 lakh. Till May 31, 2013, the Centre had sanctioned projects that would benefit around 1.32 lakh eligible habitations. The total cost of these sanctioned projects, including those for upgradation of roads, is approximately Rs.1.5 lakh crore. Of this, around Rs.1.04 lakh crore has been released to various states and union territories. The states had upgraded 3.8 lakh km of roads till May 2013.