But 1-yr-old roads are cracking up

In its inspection of over two dozen roads in Gumla, Simdega, East Singhbhum, West Singhbhum, Godda, Dumka and Deogarh, the committee found that irregularities were rampant. Take the 13-km road between Ghagra and Adangi which was required to be 14-inches deep. The committee found that it only measured 10-11 inches. In the case of the inner layer of the 14-km road from Khunti to Sarwada in Ranchi district, which was supposed to contain four inches of morrum (red soil), the actual thickness was only two inches. Similarly, the Ghagra-Adangi road was required to have a bitumen layer of eight inches. But the committee, which is set to table its report in the coming Assembly session next month, found it only measured three inches.

‘‘Wherever we went and whichever roads we examined, we found irregularities,’’ said Kido, chairman of the committee. ‘‘In Chaibasa, district headquarters of West Singhbhum, a road was built by the World Bank-sponsored Bihar Plateau Development Project in 1995. But it was shown to have been built under the Pradhan Mantri Sadak Yojna,’’ he added.

‘‘The corrupt contractors are not the only ones to be blamed. Our inquiry revealed that in neighbouring Orissa, the ‘commission’ charged by the officials and ministers fluctuates between 5 to 10 per cent. But in our new state, their ‘cut’ is as high as 40 to 50 per cent. This is the main reason behind the bad quality of roads built under this project,’’ said Kido.

The yojna was started during the 2001-02 financial year with an outlay of Rs 1162.46 crore, of which the state government used less than Rs 959 crore. For the current financial year, an outlay of Rs 1392.19 crore was sanctioned. There are no figures about how many kilometres of roads were built or how much money was released by the state government this year.