The spirit and objective of PMGSY-I was to provide good all-weather road connectivity to eligible unconnected habitations. The unit of this programme is a habitation and not a revenue village or a Panchayat. A habitation is a cluster of population, living in an area, the location of which does not change over time. Desam, Dhanis, Tolas, Majras, Hamlets, etc. are commonly used to describe habitations. The population, as recorded in the Census 2001, shall be the basis for determining the population size of the habitation. The population of all Habitations within a radius of 500 metre (1.5 km of path distance in case of Hills) may be clubbed together to determine the population size. In the blocks bordering international boundary in the hill States (as identified by the Ministry of Home Affairs), however, all habitations within a path distance of 10 km may be treated as a cluster for this purpose. This cluster approach would enable the provision of connectivity to a number of Habitations, particularly in Hill/ mountainous areas. A special dispensation has been allowed to Arunachal Pradesh under PMGSY by extending the Cluster approach to all International border districts in the State by clubbing population with the path distance of 10 km and treating as a Cluster.

Unconnected habitations are listed as per the priority (generally, habitations with a higher population, as per 2001 Census, would be connected first) and depending upon the funds likely to be made available for the State, the list of road works to be taken up under PMGSY-I will be finalized each year by the District Panchayat through a consultative process involving Panchayati Raj Institutions and elected representatives.

The objective of PMGSY-I was to provide road connectivity to unconnected habitations as mentioned in response to Question 1 above. Any proposal for road connectivity may be perceived as per the programme guidelines.

A simple, non-formal transect walk shall be organised by the Assistant Engineer at the time of preparation of DPRs to finalise the alignment. The Panchayat Pradhan, local patwari, the JE, Local Revenue and Forest officials, Women PRI members and representatives of Women Self Help Groups (SHGs) also participate in the transect walk to determine the most suitable alignment, sort out the issues of land availability and to moderate any adverse social and environmental impact, eliciting necessary community participation in the programme. After transect walk, the minutes should be placed and approved by the Grama Sabha.Local people including those likely to be affected by proposed alignment are also allowed to put forth their view in this process.

An all-weather road is one that is negotiable in all seasons of the year. This implies that the road-bed is drained effectively but this does not necessarily imply that it should be paved surface with blacktopping or cement concrete. A gravel road can also be an all-weather road.

Road portions passing through built-up residential areas are prone to damages caused by wastewater from households. Programme guidelines provide for the construction of cement concrete pavement or cement/stone block pavements along with covered or uncovered Pucca side drains as per site conditions.

The objective of the PMGSY is to provide an All-weather Road with necessary culverts and other cross drainage structures, which is operable throughout the year to the eligible unconnected habitations as per PMGSY guidelines in the rural areas. Rural roads constructed under PMGSY must have proper embankment and drainage. Adequate number and type of Cross Drainage (CD) works, including causeways, where appropriate, must be provided based on site requirements ascertained through necessary investigation. Minor bridges can be provided wherever necessary. A necessary advisory has been already issued to the State Governments to include the culverts/CDs bridges along with the road proposals. The proposal of long-span Bridges should be prepared as a separate DPR. However, such proposals of Bridges should be submitted with road proposals in the same batch.

Bridges on rivers/streams crossing the alignment of the road are taken up under the program along with the road proposal. The Ministry issued PMGSY-III guidelines increasing the span of Long-Span Bridges (LSBs) for funding under PMGSY as follows: Up to 200 m in respect of Special Category States and LWE districts identified by the MHA. Upto 150 m in respect of other States.

The rural road is a State subject and it is the responsibility of State Government/ District Panchayat to ensure the availability of land for construction of road works under the programme. In view of the common benefit, generally, the land for construction of roads under PMGSY is made available by the villagers/Panchayat free of cost through voluntary donation. However, in rare cases, if the land is acquired for construction of roads under PMGSY, the State Government is required to pay compensation.

Executants for construction of roads are selected through open competitive bidding for which well-established procedure for tendering is followed by the State Government. As per provisions, the bidders who have the prescribed qualifications and have the capacity to execute the works are required to take part in the bidding process. To enhance the transparency in tendering and speed up the tendering process, e- procurement of bids has been made mandatory.

As per provisions of the contract, the contractor is liable for any defect that may occur until 5 years after completion of the road work. To enforce liability of defects, the security amount is deducted from the bills of the contractors. The contractor has to rectify the defect in the above period and if the rectification has not been carried out, the Project Implementation Unit (PIU) is required to rectify the defect and recover the cost from the security deposit of the contractor.

Every contractor is required to establish a field laboratory in every package of road works in which he/she required to test the quality of material and workmanship under the supervision of executing agency. In addition to checking of quality by departmental officers of executing agency, the State Government is required to deploy independent monitors for monitoring of the quality of road works. Independent National Quality Monitors (NQMs) are also deployed by the Central Government for monitoring the quality of works randomly.

Citizen Information Board in the local language containing the following detailed information of work is provided on each work:- Description of every layer of work. Description of the quantity of material involved in work. How the road will be built and description. General information board containing information about executing agency, contractor, estimated cost of work and time for completion is also provided on every worksite.

In the interest of total transparency and to ensure the pro-active role of public representatives, the States have been advised to organize a time-bound inspection of road works with local public representatives in the following manner:- The Superintending Engineer would request the Hon’ble M.P. and Zila Pramukh once in 6 months duration to select road works in respective areas and joint inspection/visit would be organized. The Executive Engineer would request the Hon’ble MLA and Chairperson of Intermediate Panchayat once in three months duration to select road works in respective areas and joint inspection/visit would be organized. The Assistant Engineer would request the Sarpanch once in two months duration to select road works in respective areas and joint inspection/visit would be organized.

Yes, information about the programme and details about every work is available on programme website www.omms.nic.in and www.pmgsy.nic.in.The Online Monitoring and Management System (OMMS) is being used for effective management and monitoring under the programme. The required data is entered by the field level staff and the State units under this web-based package.

Along with the tendering for the construction the routine maintenance of road works for five years after completion of work is also included. Programme guidelines envisage a transfer of road works for maintenance to Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) after 5 years upon completion of the road work.

The programme envisages connecting all eligible unconnected habitations by way of an all-weather road as per Core Network with a population of 500 persons (as per 2001 Census) and above in plain areas and 250 persons and above (as per 2001 Census) in the Special Category States (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, and Uttarakhand), Tribal (Schedule-V) areas, the Desert Areas (as identified in Desert Development Programme) and in Selected Tribal and Backward Districts (as identified by the Ministry of Home Affairs/Planning Commission). In the critical 267 Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected blocks (as identified by MHA), additional relaxation has been given to connect habitations with population 100 persons and above (2001 census).