Yogi government to release Rs 3,000 cr for 'Kayakalp' of UP roads

Lucknow: In what can be called as the first big step by the Uttar Pradesh government, 60,000 kilometers of existing roads will be made pothole free and motorable at a cost of Rs 3,000 crore by mid-June of the current year before the onset of monsoon.

UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has already released Rs 942 crore for this exercise and the remaining amount would be released soon. It is worth mentioning that the PWD department handles nearly 2.1 lakh km of roads in UP and since Adityanath fixed a deadline of June 15 to ensure that no roads in the state should have potholes, the department under deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya has worked tirelessly to identify nearly 60,000 km of roads that failed the test.

Additional Chief Secretary of UP PWD, Sadakant, said “The idea is that any person who enters UP after June should feel that he has a motorable road to drive smoothly. It is a massive exercise,”

What else the Additional Chief Secretary stated:

• It is true that general maintenance was only taking place on select roads.
• The district and rural roads were not being maintained and are full of potholes.
• There have also been complaints against PWD for improper work. Now a full action plan has been made to correct this.
• A budget of Rs 3,000 crore is envisaged as 60,000 km of district and village roads need urgent repair.
• We have decided that all this renovation will happen under the surveillance of cameras and a public representative will monitor the work.
• Quality will be assured along with transparency.
• We assure that by June 15 UP roads will be motorable, we will change and beautify them within a year.
• It will be a complete 'kayakalp' (transformation).

It could be recalled that in his election speeches in UP, PM Modi had attacked the SP government for building the Agra-Lucknow expressway, but leaving the state’s other roads in pitiable condition, making commuters spend long hours traversing them.