Road to Recovery
Jharkhand has achieved in four years what it couldn’t in the first 14 years of its existence
For a state that was created with much expectation in 2000, Jharkhand did not live up to its promise for 14 years after it came into being. The state saw five chief ministers in that time, none of whom completed a term in office, and three stints of President’s rule. The Raghubar Das-led government is the first stable one Jharkhand has seen, helping it attend to the task of development.
From just 7,939 km of new roads the road construction department built in the 14 years since Jharkhand’s creation, the state made rapid strides in the pace of road development, adding 4,610 km new roads in the past four years. This means 3.3 km of road length is being built every day on an average in the past four years compared to the 1.6 km daily average of the first 14 years.
According to Chief Minister Raghubar Das, rural connectivity was key to the socio-economic development of the state. “Better connectivity is a must for efficient delivery of public services and implementation of development programmes,” he says. According to the Jharkhand Economic Survey 2017-18, 25,200 of the state’s 36,827 villages have been connected with all-weather roads.
Aware that land was a sensitive issue in the state but at the same time crucial for infrastructure, necessary reforms were introduced to facilitate acquisition and transfer to industrial and government projects. The land reforms department now hands over acquired land to the Jharkhand Industrial Area Development Authority (JIADA), the nodal agency for providing infrastructural facilities in industrial areas. A total of 2,817 hectares of land has been transferred to JIADA, which in turn has already allotted 825 ha to various projects. Over 980 ha has been handed over to the National Highways Authority of India, helping it lay 909 km of roads in the past four years.
Jharkhand has also centralised all construction activity, entrusting the Jharkhand State Building Construction Corporation with the task. Work is currently on for projects worth Rs 4,000 crore.
“Jharkhand has miles to go. While we are happy to have successfully improved infrastructure in the state, our goal is to scale it up and transform the state into one of the best in India” Raghubar Das Chief Minister, Jharkhand