The Uttar Pradesh government has again announced to launch a drive for making the roads pothole-free.
By October 15 next, all the potholes will be repaired, by November 30 all roads damaged during the monsoon season will be repaired and restored and all pending road projects will be completed by December 31.
The Yogi Adityanath government had launched a similar drive in March 2017 soon after the
Bharatiya Janata Party came to power, under which all roads, including national highway, were targeted to be made pothole-free by the end of June 15. The deadline was extended several times but the drive met with limited success due to resource constraints.
The total length of roads constructed and maintained by different agencies of the state government is 71,454 km. The agencies are Public Works Department, National Highway Division of PWD, UP Rajya Krishi Utpadan Mandi Parishad, Rural Development Department, Cane Department and Irrigation Department.
Chief Secretary Anoop Chandra Pandey on Wednesday convened a meeting of various departments to fine-tune the drive for making the roads pothole-free.
He directed the government departments to prepare a road directory as per the category of roads and make the data available online to the common citizens on the website of the PWD. The different road categories are village road, district road, major district road, state highway and national highway.
Pandey said the online data on roads should include department-wise roads and their length so that the common man may obtain the information about repair of roads in their respective areas with the click of the mouse.
He said the PWD had also launched a mobile app and it be made available to all the government agencies engaged in road construction and repair.
The Chief Secretary directed the government agencies to upload all information about the repair of patches, potholes and overall progress of the road construction.
He said every relevant information, whether the work was in progress or held up for various reasons, had to be uploaded on the mobile app.
Principal Secretary (Housing and PWD) Nitin Gokran said under the drive, 41,952 km of PWD roads would be made pothole-free, 18,339 km of roads would be renovated and 4,041 km of roads under construction would be completed.
He said 441 km of national highways would be made pothole-free, 2,681 km roads of the Mandi Parishad, 158 km of the Rural Development department, 264 km of Cane department and 1,563 km of Irrigation department would be either made pothole-free or fully renovated during the period specified by the Chief Secretary.
