Plans have been laid to build rural roads spanning 125,000 km

In his last Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had assured connectivity to all villages in India. This plus, recent reports of popular news medium has indicated that when the Modi government had come to power in 2014, about 178,184 homes were applicable to be connected through the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). Towards the end of the firm term, close to 97 per cent of these homes were connected with all-weather roads, with only 5,345 habitats yet to be covered in the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and Odisha.

In its most recent, reports reveal that the government is set to announce its plan on the execution of a mega rural road-building project worth Rs 70,000 crore in order to connect the vegetable markets to nearby villages. This would include building roads spanning 125,000 km, for which, 40 per cent will be funded by states with the remaining coming from the centre.

Once completed, the project is expected to improve connectivity facilitating a free flowing movement of produce. As reported, not all the roads would be black-topped, which involves layering the road with asphalt. But the roads would be lined with gravel, as the villages being thinly populated, would not require fully developed roads.