UP faces fund shortage for its rural road project

The Uttar Pradesh government had earmarked Rs 2,125 crore for construction of roads under the Ram Manohar Lohiya Samagra Vikas Yojana in 1,598 villages in 2012-13. But now the government has scaled down the amount to just Rs 391 crore because of lack of funds, said a senior official in the State Panchayati Raj Department. And even out of the 391 crore, only Rs 100 crore has actually been released for the purpose so far, said the official.

With this kind of situation, the official machinery may have to do without the cement concrete (CC) roads for now. Instead of saturation of the villages with the CC roads, the government has asked the departments concerned to spend Rs 20 lakh, Rs. 30 lakh and Rs. 40 lakh per village (depending on the population of a village), on the construction of CC roads.

Officials concerned said that with the allocated, they can build only small patches in the name of CC roads and the objective of laying CC roads in every nook and corner of the identified villages cannot be achieved. The sources also said the extent of fund crunch could be understood from the fact that villages were yet to be identified for 2013-14, the current financial year.