‘Deadline missed, but pothole drive is on’
LUCKNOW: The UP government failed to fully meet its claim of making 1,21,034 km roads in the state pothole-free by June 15, but said it has covered 63% of roads within three months of coming to power.
Although no fresh deadline for making all roads in the state ‘gaddha mukt’ (pothole-free) has been announced, additional chief secretary Sadakant (he goes by one name) said the remaining roads would be repaired by October.
“There is no fresh deadline as it’s an ongoing project. Even this much is significant for never before was such a project undertaken with this seriousness in 15 years of SP-BSP rule,” deputy CM and PWD minister Keshav Prasad Maurya told media persons on Thursday.
The public works department (PWD) maintains the biggest chunk of roads –- nearly 23 lakh km -- of which 85,160 had potholes. The government claims to have covered 70,030 km out of this. “This is 82% success rate for roads under PWD,” said Maurya.
The government furnished data suggesting the task was a complex one as roads in the state were maintained by different departments or agencies – PWD, panchayati raj, irrigation, mandi parishad, sugarcane development, municipal corporations and local bodies and national highway authority.
The best progress was observed in roads under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (96% roads repaired), NHAI (81% roads covered) and PWD (82%) while roads under irrigation department fared the worst with no improvement.
BJP general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak said, “The intention is more important than deadlines. We took up a difficult task and honestly went about it. Roads in UP have started improving and over the next couple of months you would be able to see a palpable difference. Had the previous governments been a little responsible, roads would not have been that bad.”
We have achieved in less than 100 days what the SP, BSP governments failed to do in 15 years. A network of roads, bridges and railway overbridges is being planned for UP KESHAV MAURYA, deputy CM