The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Scheme to link tribal habitats delayed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 29, 2006

Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Scheme to link tribal habitats delayed

N.J. Nair

Due to poor fund utilisation and negligence in submitting development proposals

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A scheme to link habitats of tribals and weaker sections in the rural areas under the Pradhan Manthri Grameen Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) is being inordinately delayed due to poor fund utilisation and negligence in submitting development proposals.

Official sources said that the Government had utilised no more than Rs.90 crores out of the Rs.140 crores allocated by the Centre between 2001 and 2005 for strengthening rural road connectivity in the State.

Road works worth Rs.50 crores are moving at a snail's pace for want of effective monitoring. This is happening when inaccessibility has been cited as one of the major impediments in improving the standard of living in tribal settlements .

Last year too the Government failed to submit within stipulated time proposals for developing new roads. It was envisaged to develop road length of 524 km in 2005-06, but the Government submitted proposals worth Rs.50 crores only for building 54 km in road length. But the Centre did not clear the proposals.

Lapses in utilising Central funds are coming into public attention at a time when a severe financial crunch is being blamed for impeding rural infrastructure development. The primary objective of the PMGSY is to link unconnected habitations mainly in hilly and mountainous regions through all-weather roads.

Since population is the main criteria, the funds can be utilised to link isolated habitations with a minimum population of 500 persons. At present, the rural road network in the State runs to a length of 22,543 km. State Governments submit their development proposals to the National Rural Road Development Agency, which is the apex body for implementing the scheme.

It may be recalled that the Kerala State Rural Roads Development Agency has also been set up as a nodal agency for implementing the scheme in the State. The district panchayat is the main coordinating agency at the district level for preparing the priority list of roads in consultation with the local MPs.

As per the guidelines, each work should be completed within nine months and whoever takes up the work is bound to maintain the stretch for the next five years. The coordinating agency is entitled to spend up to Rs.30 lakhs for developing a stretch of 1 km. According to the scheme, an exclusive technical team has to be set up for supervising the works.

Agencies have been deputed to train engineers and the College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram, is one such. The scheme will be implemented by a team headed by an executive engineer in each district.

Lack of technical staff at the block level is being pointed out as the main reason for the delay in completing the works. But the workload of the technical staff in departments has been reduced considerably following the devolution of powers to the local self-government institutions.

The Government is now working on proposals worth Rs.600 crores for developing 2,200 km of roads in three years.

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