BRO to take up PMGSY roads

Bhubaneswar: To expedite the construction of roads under the Pradhanmantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) in the naxal infested districts, the Orissa government has requested the Border Road Organisation (BRO) to take up the PMGSY construction works in those areas.

The state government has requested the Centre to extend the period of completion of the roads under this scheme to 18 months from 11 months.

“The road work is affected in the naxal affected districts and the contractors are not willing to take up jobs there. So we have requested the Central government organisations like Border Road Organisation (BRO) to take up works in those areas”, the state minister for rural development, Biswa Bhushan Harichandan, said.

He said, the state government has urged the Centre to relax certain conditions of the standard bidding documents like reducing the initial performance security of 5 percent to 2.5 percent.

While the Union government should sanction bridge projects upt o 100 metres span along with the road work, the tenders which could not be awarded due to higher tender rates or where there is no response to the tenders, the revised cost should be borne by the Union government, he added.

Regarding the efforts of the state government to expedite the work under this scheme, the minister said, bidding capacity of ‘A’ class contractors have been raised from Rs 1 crore to Rs 2 crore. Similarly, the higher value packages have been split into small packages.