Govt targets ₹70,000-cr rural road network

The Union government has decided to invest a massive ₹70,000 crore on rural road-building projects connecting vegetable markets to nearby villages. The project would seek to build roads spanning 125,000 km, 40 percent of which would be funded by the States and the remaining by the Centre. The improved connectivity will allow smoother movement of produce, boost farmer income, and improve agricultural economy. Research has shown that good road connectivity in rural areas has much more impact on growth and even poverty alleviation, said director of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mahendra Dev. The roads would be lined with gravel, as these thinly populated villages would not require fully developed roads. The Prime Minister in his speeches has repeatedly promised connectivity to all villages, irrespective of the number of people inhabiting them. This promise trumped the policy which mandated connectivity to all villages on plains which had at least 500 people, and villages with at least 250 people in hilly areas. At the time when this government came to power in 2014, close to 178,184 homes were applicable to be connected through the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). By the end of the first term, close to 97 percent of these homes were connected with all-weather roads, with only 5,345 habitats yet to be covered in states such as J&K, Assam and Odisha.