Substantial progress has been made on construction of complexes of the Odisha Adarsha Vidyalaya (OAVs) by the Department of Rural Development(DoRD)
DoRD has completed 209 projects out of 234 OAV projects given to the Department till August 2022 while 25 projects are under construction. Target is there to complete the remaining 26 OAV projects in this financial year.
However, execution of various road and bridge projects in rural areas was affected during the current financial year due to the onset of monsoon.
According to official sources, the State has able to complete only 20 per cent of the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) roads, 15 per cent of bridges under non-RIDF, 9 per cent bridges under Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) and 26 per cent of roads under Mukhya Mantri Sadak Yojana (MMSY) till August end of the current financial year.
Target was set to construct 2000 km roads with an expenditure of Rs 1383.33 crore during the current fiscal, of which the Rural Development Department was able to complete only 413.48 km with an expenditure of Rs 726.36 crore. The physical and financial achievements stood at 20.67 per cent and 52.51 per cent till September 3, 2022.
Under the MMSY, the State Government has set a target to complete 356 road projects including 55 spill over projects having a total length of 2307.16 km during this year, the sources said.
Of which, only 30 projects (16 spill over projects) with total length of 137.87 km have been completed. Out of the budgetary provision of Rs 947.16 crore, the RD Department was able to make an expenditure of Rs 278.48 crore. Therefore, the physical and financial achievements of MMSY, till August end, stood at 26.03 per cent and 28.59 per cent, respectively.
Under Biju Setu Yojana (BSY), the State Government has planned to take up 400 bridges during 2011-12 in the first phase, which was subsequently scaled up to 1332 till end of 2018-19 with a total project cost of Rs. 6130.51crore, to ensure all-weather connectivity to the people. The 1332 bridges include 536 RD roads and 796 important PS roads.
Subsequently, another 458 bridges have been sanctioned under the BSY in the year 2021-22, they said.
Out of the 1790 bridges sanctioned under the State scheme, 1139 bridges have been completed till March, 2022 while another 33 bridges were completed during April to August, 2022. So far, a total of 1172 BSY bridges have been completed in the State while work is under progress at 416 bridges and tender process is on to construct another 51 bridges. The work at the remaining 151 bridges have been either dropped or halted due to court cases and faulty design and other technical issues, the officials said.