12 Dec :The Minister of State in the Ministry of Rural Development Shrimati Suryakanta Patil today informed lok Sabha in reply to a written question that no fresh directions/guidelines have been issued to States for identification of villages and selection of roads for implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY).
However, in order to provide connectivity to a larger number of small and dispersed habitations in the hill/mountainous areas, the programme guidelines have been modified to the extent that in the blocks bordering international boundaries in the hill States (as identified by Ministry of Home Affairs) all habitations within a path distance of 10 km. would be treated as a cluster to determine the size of population against 1.5 k.m. in the earlier guidelines. Also, the State Governments have been advised to make efforts for achieving targets under the Rural Road component of Bharat Nirman, which is a subset of PMGSY.