New Delhi: The Modi government has been pushing to enhance rural road connectivity across India, but progress has been bumpy.
Seven states and Union territories, including West Bengal and Maharashtra, failed to reach even 20 percent of their targets under the flagship Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) for rural connectivity in the first nine months of the last financial year, according to the latest progress report of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).
The other lowest performers were Kerala, Jharkhand, Nagaland, and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Another low performer was Chhattisgarh, which reached exactly 20 percent of its target for the April-December 2022 period.
MoSPI’s progress report of the Twenty Point Programme-2006, released in April this year, categorised the progress of states and UTs that met less than 80 percent of targets as “poor”.
Overall, 24 states and UTs came into this category, including several where the BJP is in power or part of a ruling coalition, namely Gujarat, Assam, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Uttarakhand.
In contrast, the progress in Uttar Pradesh and Odisha was rated “very good” in the report, with the states completing 93 percent and 90 percent of the set target respectively. Ladakh also showed positive results, 84 percent of the sanctioned work was completed during the period.
Despite these few bright spots, the overall progress of the PMGSY has been labelled as “poor” in the report. Only 53 percent of the cumulative target was achieved between April and December 2022, with a total road length of 18,808 km constructed in rural areas, falling short of the set target for this period of 35,385 km. The annual target for road construction in rural areas for the last financial year was set at 47,171 km.
According to information provided by a spokesperson from the Ministry of Rural Development, under which PMGSY comes, the scheme saw 29,753 km of road length being constructed in FY 2022-23, accounting for 63 percent of the target.
Since 2014, a total of 3.53 lakh km of roads has been constructed in rural areas under the scheme, the spokesperson said.
The ministry is yet to respond to queries from ThePrint regarding unmet targets and reasons for the delays. This report will be updated as and when a response is received.
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Straggler states
The MoSPI report shows that several states achieved 20 percent or less of their targets in April-December 2022.
Among these stragglers, poll-bound Chhattisgarh achieved 20 percent of its target, with 431 km of roads being constructed in the first nine months of the financial year out of the aimed-for 2,157 km.
Other states that achieved less than 20 percent of their target in this period were Nagaland (19 percent), Jharkhand (18 percent), Kerala (17 percent), and then, in the last two positions, Maharashtra (15 percent) and West Bengal (12 percent). Andaman & Nicobar Islands, a UT, met 8 percent of its target.
In the case of West Bengal and Maharashtra, the goal was to construct 1,200 km and 1,500 km of rural roads, respectively, between April and December 2022.
However, the report shows that only 112 km of road was built in West Bengal, and 228 km in Maharashtra, during that period.
According to the information available on the Rural Development Ministry’s portal for online monitoring of PMGSY, just 464 km out of 1,770 km of rural roads were constructed in West Bengal in the financial year 2022-23.
For Maharashtra, 1,132 km out of 2,000 km of roads were constructed in FY 2022-23.
Explaining the reason for the slow pace of work, a senior Maharashtra government official pointed to an extended monsoon season disrupting progress. “April to December 2022 includes monsoon season from June to September, which extended to October in 2022 in Maharashtra. Work progress could not be maintained due to extended monsoon,” he said.
“In the current financial year 2023-24, the target is set at 1,770 km, and so far, 465 km has been completed. The state has planned to achieve the given target,” he added.
The official told ThePrint that work is ongoing for 816 roads with a combined length of 2,565 km as well as 17 bridges. Further, he said, the state has received sanction to construct another 413 roads with a length of 2,559 km, currently in the tendering stage.
“These works will be awarded in July 2023 and will be started soon,” the official said.
‘Vehicle of social & economic development’
Launched under the Atal Behari Vajpayee-led NDA government in December 2000, the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana is a crucial scheme aimed at assisting states in providing connectivity to rural habitations with a population of 500 or more in plain areas and 250 or more in northeastern and Himalayan states, desert areas, tribal areas, and other remote regions.
Since its inception, the scheme has seen fresh iterations and the broadening of its scope
In 2013, the Congress-led UPA government launched PMGSY-II as a need was felt for consolidation of the existing rural road network to “improve its efficiency not only as a provider of transportation services, but also as a vehicle of social and economic development”, to use the words of a report from the standing committee on Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, tabled in Parliament this March.
This initiative focused on the consolidation and upgrading of selected through routes and Major Rural Links (MRLs) across various states and Union territories, with a target of upgrading 50,000 km of roads, as mentioned in the demand for grant report of 2023-24.
Then, under the BJP-led NDA government in 2019, PMGSY-III was introduced, emphasizing the consolidation of 1,25,000 km of through routes and Major Rural Links. These upgraded roads aimed to connect habitations with essential facilities such as Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs), higher secondary schools, and hospitals.
Road connectivity in Naxal areas
In 2016, the Road Connectivity Project for Left Wing Extremism Affected Areas (RCPLWEA) was launched as a separate vertical under PMGSY, focusing on the construction and upgradation of strategically important roads to provide connectivity to habitations with a population of 100 or more.
Around 12,100 km of road length has been sanctioned under RCPLWEA across nine states, namely Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh.
According to the Rural Development Ministry’s response to a Lok Sabha question on 28 March this year, a total of 7,177 km of roads had been constructed under RCPLWEA —approximately 59 percent of the target.
In response to another Lok Sabha question this March, Minister of State for Rural Development Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti told Parliament that out of the total 6,253 habitations sanctioned in the 100-249 population category within Left Wing Extremism areas, 5,999 habitations had already been connected as of 7 March 2022.
Only 254 habitations are yet to be connected, indicating that 96 percent of the habitations in the 100-249 population category within Left Wing Extremism areas have been provided with connectivity.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
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