Rural roads construction pace increases to 139 km per day

The construction pace of roads built under the flagship scheme of the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) has increased to 139 km per day. Earlier, the government was working to increase the pace to 133 km per day and was planning to construct an additional 50,000 km rural roads.    From 2011 to 2014, the roads in rural areas under the PMGSY were constructed at 70-75 km per day. And, in following two years 2014-16, it increased to 100 km per day. Currently, the roads are being constructed at 139 km per day, according to Amarjeet Sinha, Secretary, Rural Development, as per reports. While the construction speed was 139 km in the first five months, 133 km will be constructed per day under the PMGSY in 2016-17.   Further, the Centre has adopted green technologies such as use of waste plastic, fly-ash, cold mix, jute and coir geo-textiles, copper and iron slag in the making of rural roads.   The programme envisages connecting all habitations with a population of 500 people and above as per 2001 census in plain areas and 250 people and above as per 2001 census in special category states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand. The habitations having a population of 100 and above and identified by Home Ministry as crucial, are also covered under the scheme.   The government has also launched the second phase of PMGSY-II, which envisages consolidation of the existing rural road network to improve its overall efficiency.