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Big leap in building roads in M.P.: Governor

Staff Correspondent

Budget session of Madhya Pradesh Assembly begins; Jakhar details State Government's achievements

BHOPAL: The Budget session of the Madhya Pradesh Assembly began on Tuesday with the Governor, Balram Jakhar, emphasising that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Government is committed to development and every effort is being made to ensure that the State ranks among the country's leading States.

The Governor said the State Government had made significant progress in building new roads and repairing old roads on priority. The State Public Works department had constructed 9,886 km of roads with an outlay of Rs. 858 crores in the last two years, he said, adding that Rs. 4,300 crores would be spent on upgradation of another 16,200 km of roads in the next three years. Besides, work on over 25,000 km of roads is planned to be taken up in the next three-year period by the Rural Roads Development Authority.

Dr. Jakhar said the State Government had taken up different power generation projects to make the State self-reliant on the power front by 2007-2008. For augmenting the power distribution system, the State Government has also taken up special projects worth over Rs. 1,138 crores with the help of Asian Development Bank,

NABARD and Government of India. In the year 2006-07, the State Government will work on priority when it comes to the implementation of the Rajiv Gandhi Rural Electrification Project, he added.

The Governor said the State Government was giving priority to efforts aimed at expanding the irrigation network. In order to complete the ongoing irrigation schemes on an urgent basis, resources were being sought from the Government of India, NABARD and other financial institutions.

He said Madhya Pradesh became the first State that began implementing the river inter-linking project by signing an MoU with Uttar Pradesh for linking Ken and Betwa.

Besides, he said, five lakh hectares of land would be brought under irrigation in Madhya Pradesh through the World Bank funded Rs. 1,919-crore Water Restructuring Project.

He said that development of the NarmadaValley was a priority of the State Government. "We have succeeded in completing the Indira Sagar project one year before schedule and work on Omkareshwar, Bargi diversion, Shahid Chandra Shekhar Azad and Upper Veda irrigation projects is going full-steam ahead", he said, adding that in the last two-year period, additional 85,111 hectare of land was brought under irrigation with the help of the Narmada Valley projects.

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Big leap in building roads in M.P.: Governor

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