BJD’s 2014 poll promise of pucca roads remains a pipe dream

Bhubaneswar: The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) as part of its election manifesto in 2014, promised to connect all villages in Odisha with pucca roads by the end of their fourth term. The ground reality narrates a different tale now.
The cases of deaths of pregnant women and patients carried on temporary makeshift arrangements due to the failure of connecting remote areas with pucca roads in districts like Nabarangpur and Kalahandi have often hogged limelight in the past five years. However, the problem is yet to be resolved.
Not only the remote areas, but many districts closer to the state Capital are deprived of pucca roads. Dengajhari is a tribal village under the Ranpur Block of Nayagarh district which is one of the few villages within 100-km periphery of the state capital that is yet to be connected through pucca roads.
Bhagya Laxmi, a community leader working in the village said, “Although this is close to the Capital, a pucca road is yet to reach this village and the condition of the only road worsens during monsoons and affects the movement of villagers.”
Similar is the tale of Kholibithar village in Boden block of Nuapada district. “A person needs to travel through narrow roads to reach the village. One needs to cross a stream on foot to reach the village. The stream expands during the monsoon and cuts off the village from the rest of Nuapada,” said Rina Chinda, a villager of Kholibithar.
The BJD Manifesto in 2014 had said, “Rural Connectivity has so far been one of the top priorities of the BJD government and in the next five years ‘‘all the village roads’’ will either be concretised or will have bitumen top. A Chief Minister Sadak Yojana will be launched to provide connectivity to all villages having a population of 100 and less which cannot be covered under any other existing scheme,”
However, with the existing Central scheme of Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) which works on the sharing basis of 60:40 and CM Sadak Yojana, many villages are yet to be connected with a concrete road or with a road with bitumen top.
A recent reply furnished by the Ministry of Rural Development in the Lok Sabha February 7, 2019 claimed that Odisha is yet to complete 7,687.56-km of rural roads under the PMGSY while work of 3,251-km road works were hanging fire for the past one year. The ministry data also claimed that works on 2,872-km under the projects sanctioned under the PMGSY way back in 2014 (five years ago) are yet to be completed.
For the backward areas, another Parliament reply of the ministry in December 2018 claimed that as reported by the state government, till November, 2018, 1978 road works had been sanctioned under PMGSY in Koraput, Malkangiri and Nabarangapur districts. Out of this, 768 road works have not been completed in these districts.
Officials working with the projects claim that the delays and hindrances are often due to lukewarm response to tenders being floatedfor many projects, delay in obtaining forest clearances for projects in forest areas, apathy of the concerned executing agencies and some pending litigations in courts.