PANEL FINDS PM’S ROAD PROGRAMME A FLOP

in rural areas having been shown as connected and non-inclusion of eligible habitations by as many as 19 states.

The committee headed by Congress MP Mallikarjun Kharge has also found that around 4,500 projects in an astounding 26 states were delayed by one month to 129 months owing to land disputes, lack of forest clearances, delay in getting permission for mining operations and paucity of funds among a host of other reasons.

The panel which evaluates performance audit of all government departments as well as their schemes and initiatives, while scrutinising PMGSY’s financial performance, found that 19 states like Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, J&K, Jharkhand, Kerala and Rajasthan among others reported discrepancies like unconnected habitations being shown as connected.Also eligible habitations (which should be connected as per the norms of PMGSY) were not even included by the aforementioned states, while several habitations were found to be placed in wrong population size.

It was further observed by the Parliamentary panel that in seven states -Bihar, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and West Bengal,73 road works were executed and shown as completed without providing complete connectivity to the targetted habitations due to lack of required land, non-clearance by railways, non-construction of required bridges, among several other reasons.

Importantly, out of this, 72 road works were executed at a cost of Rs 120 crore.

In fact, the committee has regretfully noted that this was an “instance of casual and lackadaisical attitude displayed by the Rural Development Ministry in implementing PMGSY”.

PMGSY was launched by the erstwhile NDA regime led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in December 2000 with the aim of providing single all-weather road connectivity to all eligible unconnected habitations in rural areas with a population of 1,000 persons.