Uttar Pradesh, one of the four states that enjoyed a slice of the World Bank aid totalling nearly $1.9 billion, has built 39,568 km of rural roads since the inception of PMGSY. Sanjeev Kumar, Commissioner, Rural Development, tells Shashidhar Nanjundaiah why there is a need for community monitoring systems.
How many roads will you build under the new connectivity under PMGSY?
There is an outlay of Rs 370 crore, involving 514 roads of 863 km in total. These are rural roads, entailing small stretches of bituminous roads.
Who are typical awardees of contracts—local contractors? What is the process?
There are contractors who are already registered under Department of Rural Development (DRD) and empaÂnelled with the UP government. The bigger conÂtracts are awarded through e-tenders, using the L1 method.
In practice, is it mostly the local contractors who take up the rural road contracts?
The big contractors do take up our contracts, but sometimes sub-contract them out. Secondly, there is a difficulty being faced in maintenance contracts, because the maintenance packages are usually small and thereÂfore less attractive. So the problem that arose then was the order which we created 4-5 months ago that is taken care by D category contractors, who are in the
Rs 10 lakh category.
Under PMGSY, maintenance contract is in-built for the initial five years, after which maintenance would be done by D category contractors. In case a contractor leaÂves the project during the maintenance period, forfeiting the deposit, we award it to the D category contractors.
What is your priority right now on rural roads?
There is a core network which is lodged by the Government of India. Currently in the core network, the priority of the Government of India is to connect the villages of population between 500 and 999. One of our districts, Sonbhadra, is a Left-Wing Extremism-affeÂcted (LWE) district with Naxalite presence, and there we connect villages with even a population of
250 onwards. This is a concession under the scheme.
How difficult is it to make roads there?
That district is in a hilly terrain. It is not difficult to make roads per se, but often the problem is accessibility. And because it is affected by Naxals, not much deveÂlopment has taken place so far.
In similar situations as in Assam—hilly and militancy-infested—one of the hardest and delays-ridden activities is to build roads. Is the situation similar in Sonbhadra?
That may not be a comparable situation. The Naxalite activity is present in Jharkhand, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. The Sonbhadra district acts as a buffer zone when Naxalites feel the pressure in those states. If they disturb our activity, they will be removed from here as well, so they try not to disrupt any developmental activity in UP.
The size of maintenance contracts is small in rural roads, so are the big contractors not interested in it? How much length do you contract out?
The lengths have not changed, and you’re right in that the size of maintenance contracts does pose a proÂblem for bigger players. Even bundling up to 25 km may not attract them. On the other hand, if the quality of conÂstruction is good, the maintenance cost will be low.
There is an in-built maintenance incentive for quaÂlity construction. Payments are fixed and made each quaÂrter upon inspection, on the basis of quality parameters: Riding surface, shoulders, incline, kilometre stones and other signages, etc. If construction is good, maintenance costs to the contractor will be low but he continues to be paid the fixed sum every quarter.
Perhaps the smaller, local contractors feel the pressure of the local community more?
The contractors often belong to the same village and hence the pressure is already there. It is much harder to pin down the bigger contractors from far-flung cities.
Do you have sufficient infrastructure for inspection?
No. We hire third parties for monitoring. These are state-level appointments that inspect and act upon any complaints that we send them.
Are you satisfied with the way PMGSY is being implemented, or you think there is any scope of improvement?
There is definitely scope for improvement. We have both honest and corrupt engineers, and so quality often differs in patches depending on individual morality. Better surveillance is needed. We have a three-tier sysÂtem that includes the contractor’s integrity, state-level quality monitoring and central monitoring.
Do you have plans to make surveillance and quality monitoring a community affair?
This is needed, and will be very useful for the projects. But this requires awareness in the communities.
Are you making efforts to create the awareness?
There is no planned activity as such. In Kerala, liteÂracy has had a huge impact on development. That trend has started to reflect in one or two places in our state too. When we visit villages, we communicate with them in that respect. In an interior village in Jalaun in Bundelkhand, we could see a replication of what we have seen on our visit to Kerala: A few youngsters told us that they did not need any external inspection ageÂncy, and that they would ensure the work was done. The villagers,including women, are well-educated and have taken it upon themselves to share among them the responsibility of monitoring the project including remÂoving someone who was not working up to the mark. They had no complaints about the project.
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