Public Works Minister Gulab Singh Thakur said that NABARD has sanctioned Rs 88.96 crore as loan from its Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) for construction of 22 Rural Roads & Bridge Projects and 12 Minor Irrigation Projects.
He said that to provide better road connectivity in rural areas the Government pursued the matter with NABARD vigorously and was successfully in getting sanction for mettling 13 roads having length of 98.51 kms in districts Kangra, Sirmour, Shimla, Una, Solan and Kullu and seven Kutcha Roads of districts Kangra, Kullu Chamba, and Mandi of 52.985 kms. Besides, two bridges of span length of 150 metres would also be constructed in Kangra and Mandi districts. The Minister said that due to difficult geophysical area of the State the roads were considered as lifeline of hilly people and required adequate funds to construct such roads. He said that the Government was endeavoured to connect all the census villages with roads and so far 3605 kms of roads and 255 bridges had been constructed during last four years. He said that the total outlay is Rs 72.96 crore with RIDF assistance being Rs 65.66 crore.
He said that apart from this, 12 Minor Irrigation Projects in districts Hamirpur, Kangra, Kullu and Una had also been sanctioned by the NABARD covering 1534.18 hectares of land. The total outlay for these projects was Rs 24.52 crore, with Rs 23.30 crore as RIDF assistance.
