Rural roads set to get Rs.90,000 cr booster

The Union government is all set to inject a staggering sum worth Rs.90,000 crore for development of roads under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) for the next three years. The government is expected to spend approximately Rs.1,00,000 crore on building new roads, including the ones in areas affected by Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) and upgrading roads already built under PMGSY, said sources, claiming that rural road infrastructure will get an additional Rs.11,000 crore for roads in LWE, through PMGSY. As per the government stats, 47,447 km of roads have already been constructed till 2016-17. Out of 1,38,210 roads project, sanctioned, 83.7% were completed as of December 2017 and out of 1,78,000 habitations where these rural roads were to be built, roads in the remaining 47,000 areas are targeted to be completed by March 2019. It was learnt that Centre and states will share the financial burden in the ratio of 60:40 as the government has set itself a target of completing the work under the program before the next general elections in 2019.