World Bank approves $1.5 billion for rural roads

Lalit K Jha
Washington, Dec 22 (PTI) The World Bank on Tuesday
approved a USD 1.5 billion Credit and Loan for India's Pradhan
Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) aimed towards improving rural
accessibility of roads.
The new project will concentrate on the states of
Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Punjab, Rajasthan,
Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh, the Bank said in a statement.
Over the next five years, the project will aim to provide
these states with an average connectivity of around 91 per
cent by constructing 24,200 km of all-weather roads to benefit
an estimated 6.1 million people.
The project will also develop a system for maintaining
these roads in good condition over the long term.
"A good road network can generate many commercial and
social benefits for rural economies through increasing access
to goods as well as services such as health and education,"
said the World Bank's Country Director for India, Roberto
Zagha.
The credit and loan is from the International Development
Association (IDA) – the World Bank's concessionary lending
arm, which provides interest-free loans with 35 years to
maturity and a 10-year grace period, and from the
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)
which has a 5-year grace period, and a maturity of 18 years.
The program was established in the year 2000 to address
the challenge of poor rural accessibility at a time when
almost 40 per cent, or 300 million people in the country
lacked access to unpaved roads.
And a large part of the existing 2.7 million km of the
rural road network were in poor condition, impeding access to
markets and increasing transportation costs.
While the PMGSY also called as Prime Minister's Rural
Roads Programme has since added 2,74,000 km of new roads, in
vast parts of the country, especially in economically weaker
and hilly areas, continue to remain inaccessible.
The project also includes USD 60 million in technical
assistance to build the capacity of the rural roads agencies,
especially in the ongoing management of assets and the
sustainable maintenance of roads. PTI