From now on rural roads built under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY) in Uttar Pradesh will have regular quality assurance checks.

The state Department of Rural Development — the implementing agency of the PMGSY in UP — has decided that during the construction period, the roads will be checked on a monthly basis and in the maintenance period the quality checks will be held every quarter.

This comes after the department’s annual target of constructing roads has been increased from Rs 2,500 crore to Rs 4,000 crore. With a bigger target in hand, the department wants to ensure that the quality of the roads built under the scheme is not compromised.

According to the current norms, the under-construction roads are checked for quality on quarterly basis and the same happens during the maintenance period of five years.

The department’s superintendent engineers will also be given a target of checking eight roads constructed under this scheme every month.

“We had a target of construction of roads worth Rs 2,500 crore last year but this year, it’s nearly double and hence, the emphasis on quality is quite high,” said Manoj Kumar Singh, Commissioner (Rural Development). He said that the stress would also be on the selection of contractors.

“We will not select any of those contractors who have ever been blacklisted. Also, we will try to ensure that the contractor who constructs the road, is responsible for its maintenance,” said Singh.

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