Rural road construction: Villagers can directly submit proposal through online portal

Guwahati: People in rural areas of the state will no longer need to approach the local MLA to get a road sanctioned in the area as the state government is soon going to launch an online portal through which they can submit details of the road that is needed, and the proposal will then be processed.

This move was mulled due to lapses in road selection by the authorities concerned, as engineers often do not have the requisite information about the area and the roads that need to be constructed. Soon, people will themselves be able to identify the roads needed, and the authorities can take them forward from there.

The criteria for the construction of a new road are that a minimum of 250 households should live in that particular area or village. People will have the power in their own hands to request a new road by uploading the details of the particular village where such a road is needed, on the portal.

Sources said the idea emanated from the applications that people hand over to the Chief Minister when he goes to the area for some reason or another. It was then realised that there is a gap between the people and the authorities concerned, and this portal is expected to remove that lacuna.

The road network in Assam comprises a total of 65,748 km, consisting of 51,788 km of rural roads, 3,182 km of urban roads, 4,309 km of major district roads, and 3,927 km of national highways. Out of the total 65,748 km of road length in the state, 14,266 km are un-surfaced roads. Since 2017, the length of surfaced roads has increased by 80%. It is expected that surfaced road length will increase by around 10% during the financial year 2023–24.

Apart from the PWD, a length of 31,197 km of roads has been completed under the Prime Minister Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) in rural areas of the state by the end of 2023.

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