Orissa yet to wake up to PMGSY

Orissa yet to wake up to PMGSY
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

BHUBANESWAR, FEB 13: The Orissa government has no time to accept Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee's birthday gift to the nation. The Prime Minister announced the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) on December 25, last year, and the state government is yet to finalise the project proposal to utilise the scheme.

At this rate, work on the PMGSY projects can start only after the monsoon. The delay by the Rural Development Department in finalising road projects for different areas under the PMGSY has already raised doubts about the sincerity of the authorities.

All that the state government needed to do was to identify the roads for construction and repair, and submit the proposal to the Centre for release of funds. Orissa is, perhaps, the only state which has so far not submitted any proposal to the Centre.

Initially, Rs 212 crore was earmarked for Orissa under the project for 2000-2001. But the allocation for the state was slashed to Rs 175 crore when the state government showed no interest in the scheme. Surprisingly, the state government did not take up the matter with the Centre even after the allocation was slashed.

The project has become jinxed in Orissa from the very beginning because of the cold war between the Panchayatraj and Rural Development departments. After the Rural Development Department was appointed as the nodal agency to implement the project, the authorities in the Panchayatraj Department started cribbing.

Now the central guideline has made it clear that fund will be placed with the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) for the implementation of the project putting the government in a fix. Besides, the list of the roads to be repaired or constructed under the project would also have to be approved by the DRDA.ØWhile, the government is yet to finalise the tender committees at the constituency level, no high level meeting has so far been convened to discuss the matter by either departments.