CM reviews progress in road projects

Plan to develop Govindpur-Jamtara-Dumka-Sahebganj road as industrial corridor

Ranchi: The Chief Minister in a review meeting of the Road Construction Department said that quality of roads should be the priority.

He issued directives to complete the pending road projects expeditiously. Special care should be taken of its usefulness in the construction of new roads.

He also reviewed the progress of various road projects, work plans related to new road construction and revenue collection. The Chief Minister directed the departmental officers to prepare an action plan for the construction of a dedicated road in the Mines area.

In the construction of such roads, special care should be taken that it does not affect the dense population or villages much.

The departmental officers apprised the chief minister that toll plazas are proposed on some roads in the state.

Toll tax will be charged from goods vehicles here. In this regard, a survey of 425 roads of 4856 km length has been done.

On this, the Chief Minister said that the roads for toll plazas should be selected in such a way that it does not burden the general public. Apart from this, special emphasis should be given to the quality of the roads and on how much revenue can be earned from here, it should also be assessed closely.

The Chief Minister said that there is a lot of potential for development of industrial corridor on Govindpur-Jamtara-Dumka-Sahebganj road.

He underlined the need to identify some areas in this road and prepare an action plan to develop those as warehouse, logistics center or industries. He said that these roads can become the lifeline of Santal Parganas area.

The Chief Minister said that the problems related to forest clearance and land acquisition for road projects should be resolved at the earliest. He directed the department to review the matters related to land acquisition every 15 days and coordinate with the concerned departments for this.

The Chief Minister said that due to widening of roads in the forest area, there are many technical hurdles in land acquisition. In such a situation, assess the usefulness of the single lane roads here. After this, on the basis of priority, there should be an initiative to either widen these roads or improve the existing roads, so that people do not have to face difficulty in traffic.

The Chief Minister said that plans should also be made to build helipad around important tourist places and mines areas of the state. This will also help in curbing Naxal activities.

The department officers apprised the CM that about 612.65 km road plan has been approved for the national highway in the state in the last four years. At the same time, the process of sending DPR to the central government of 184.23 km by 30 June 2021, 307.18 km by 15 July 2021 and 180 km road plan by 31 July 2021 has been started.

These road projects have a total budget of about Rs 3160 crore. At the same time, 17 road projects have been sent for approval under the State Road Construction Department and 10 projects are to be decided at the level of State Empowered Committee.

On the occasion, Shri Sukhdev Singh, Chief Secretary, Shri Rajiv Arun Ekka, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Shri Vinay Kumar Choubey, Secretary to Chief Minister, Shri Sunil Kumar,Secretary, Road Construction Department, Shri Murari Bhagat, Chief Engineer, Shri KK Lal, Chief Engineer, Shri Arvind Pandey, Chief Engineer and Shri NP Sharma, Chief Engineer were present.