Did the Madhya Pradesh government spend anything on highway maintenance?
31 Dec, 2013
The Madhya Pradesh Government has contradicted the information provided to a Right to Information (RTI) applicant by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. The PWD has claimed that it is incorrect to say that the state government did not spend anything in 2011 and 2012 on repair and maintenance of national highways in Madhya Pradesh.
The engineer-in-chief of the PWD, Akhilesh Agrawal has said that the state government spent Rs 54 crore in 2011-12, Rs 128 crore in 2012-13 and Rs 121 crore in 2013-14. He said that in 2013-14, an allocation of Rs 64.26 crore was made in the Union budget but sufficient sanctions for individual works were not made available for spending against the provided allocation. Sanction was received for only three works costing Rs 14.93 crore out of the seven which were principally approved by the centre in the year 2013-14 and the tenders have been called. Agrawal added that delays are caused by tedious procedures set out by the centre and there has been no delay on the part of the state.