Guwahati, September 21 : Assam’s Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi, has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to increase Assam’s fund allocation from the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) program this financial year. As important as increasing the allocation is receiving the allocated funds in a timely manner.
The Government of India launched The Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana program to provide a better rural roads network bringing connectivity to unconnected Habitations as part of its poverty reduction strategy.
The Chief Minister sent a letter to the Prime Minister, calling PMGSY a ‘flagship’ programme and one of the most successful programmes in the country. Since the PMGSY programme began, Assam successfully constructed more than 15,600 km of roads, connecting 9,824 habitations.
The CM wrote to the Prime Minister because recent implementation of the rural road funds programme stalled due to the lack of cashflow from the government.
“The cumulative amount released so far is Rs. 8449.83 crore by the Centre for the programme and the expenditure made till July, 2015 is Rs 8830.56 crore. The excess expenditure has been met up from the State’s share of Rs 359.60 crore and rest from the interest accrued from Bank. The State Government has submitted provisional Utilization Certificate up to July, 2015,” Gogoi said in the letter.
According to Mr. Gogoi, Assam’s allocation for 2015-16 is only Rs 179.86 crore, but the value of committed work is Rs 1200 crore. In addition, the central government has only released Rs. 134. 90 crore, leading to the road works suffering badly.
