Gurupriya bridge to be completed before schedule

Bhubaneswar: Construction of the bridge on River Gurupriya to connect the cut off areas of Balimela reservoir with the mainland of Malkangiri will be completed before schedule, said additional chief secretary Upendra Nath Behera here on Thursday.

Briefing chief minister Naveen Patnaik at the State Secretariat here after his tour to Malkangiri district, Behera said going by the pace of work at present, it is expected that the construction of the bridge would be completed before September, 2017.

Stating that the people of Malkangiri district had a long-standing demand for construction of the bridge, Behera said though the state government had earlier entrusted the construction work of the bridge to some private construction companies, they left the project work midway due to the threat from Maoists.

“Now that the state Works department has taken up the construction work with adequate security provided by the BSF, the work is underway in full swing. On its completion, there will be direct road communication to 151 cut-off villages as a result of which the people of these villages will have more livelihood options,” he pointed out.

The additional chief secretary, who was on a two-day tour to the district on January 19 and 20 to review the status of various developmental works, said construction work of new roads and development of existing roads under the Rural Development and Works departments has started.

Out of a total of 249 new roads under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) approved by the Centre, construction work of 75 roads has been completed. While construction of 163 roads is underway, work will start soon on the remaining 11 roads. Besides, efforts are on to connect 434 tribal areas having population of at least 100 in the second phase of PMGSY.

For development of communication network in the district, the Works department has identified sites for construction of 23 bridges work on which will be completed by 2016-17, Behera informed.

Referring to the education scenario of the district, he said construction of Adarsh Vidyalayas in four of the seven blocks in the district -
Gandhipali in Malkangiri block, Mudulipada in Khairiput block, Kangurkonda in Kalimela block and Bapalpalli in Padia block - would be completed by March 31 this year and classes would start in these schools from the 2016-17 academic session.

Behera said four mega lift irrigation project works taken up in the district would provide irrigation to 4200 hectares of land. Apart from this, seven new lift irrigation projects have been identified to provide irrigation facilities to 8500 hectares of land.

He further said work on electrification of deep bore well is moving along satisfactorily.