Rural Road Construction Almost Doubles In 2016-17 Compared To 5 Years Ago

The length of rural road constructed reached new heights in 2016-17. In this fiscal, the government constructed 47,010 Km of rural roads and it is almost double of what the figure was in 2012-13 when only 24,161 Km of roads were constructed.

Union Minister of State for rural development, Ram Kripal Yadav took to micro-blogging site Twitter to inform the people of this achievement under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna scheme. Earlier in February, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced to allot Rs 27000 crore for PMGSY in budget.

Under the PMGSY, 133-km roads per day in 2016-17 were constructed against a 2011-14 average of 73-km per day.

While the improvement in the construction of rural roads is impressive, the pace of construction of national highways has remained unsatisfactory. The Union government had set a target of constructing 15,000 Km length of national highways in 2016-17 however, it was able to achieve only half of this. In this year’s budget, the government has allocated Rs 64,000 crore to National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).