The fund crunch for the government’s rural roads programme appears all set to affect road construction efforts in the worst Naxal-affected districts where the government is contemplating to saturate road requirements — by connecting every habitation — beyond the rigid norms of Bharat Nirman and Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY).

The Rural Development Ministry, which administers the rural connectivity programme, is learnt to have apprised an empowered group of officers, which is working out the modalities for accelerated development of these regions, that it would not be able to “saturate” the rural road needs in these regions from resources available to it.

The Prime Minister’s Office is learnt to be seized of the fund crunch of the rural roads programme in the country. In this context, sources said that the PMO has called for a review of the rural connectivity programme.

This admission from the Ministry has highlighted the government's predicament for its rural connectivity programme for these regions for which an empowered group of officers under the chairmanship of Member Secretary , Planning Commission, Sudha Pillai, has estimated the requirement of an additional Rs 25,400 crore for connecting every habitation with 100 or more population in 60 Naxal-affected districts.

The calculations have been worked out in the wake of the Planning Commission contemplating to bring about 60 districts under the Integrated Action Plan for Naxal regions, which envisaged to focus on 35 districts earlier.

These estimates have been worked out at a recent meeting of the empowered group of officers, which included B K Sinha, Secretary of Rural Development Ministry, A N P Sinha, Secretary Panchayati Raj, Arvind Chugh, Secretary Tribal Affairs along with Additional Secretary handling naxal management in Home Ministry.

These estimates have been worked out going beyond the rigid norms of Bharat Nirman that envisage connectivity to habitations with 500 or more population and PMGSY, which envisage providing roads to habitations over 250 population in the Naxalite affected regions.

Going beyond the rigid norms, the empowered group of officers have envisaged providing all weather roads to each habitation eligible under the PMGSY norms while the ineligible habitations with population over 100 persons would be provided gravel surface roads in these Naxal regions. In addition, these funds are suggested to be used for providing multi-connectivity to some “strategically important” habitations for quick response time of medical aid, disaster management and internal security operations.