Kalaburgi : The Public works Minister H C Mahadevappa said that the state government has released a total of Rs 218 core for taking up maintenance and repairs of the State highways and major district roads in the districts coming under the North Zone of the Public Works Department.

Speaking to the reporters on Friday, Dr Mahadevappa said while a sum of Rs 115 crore had been released for the maintenance of the State highways, a sum of Rs 103 Crore had been released for the maintenance of the Major District Roads in the North Zone of the Public Works Department.

The Minister said that the government had also given permission for the authorities concerned to spend Rs 1.5 lakh per for kilometre for maintenance and repair works of the state highways and Rs one lakh per km for the maintenance and repair works of the major district roads in the North Zone. The maintenance and repair works including the filling up of the potholes of all the roads have begun already and by the end of December of all the roads in the state would be free of potholes, he said.

Dr. Mahadevappa said that for the first time in the country, the Road Information System had been introduced in Karnataka with all important information pertaining to the length, condition of the roads, actual amount spent for the construction of the road, maintenance work taken up and other details. This would prevent duplication of the works under different accounts by different agencies and fake the bills.

Along with this, the minister said that the Public Works department has also introduced the Project Monitoring system in the State to keep tab of the progress of the work and ensure quality in the construction of the roads and other projects taken up by the Public Works department.

On the controversy surrounding the sand extraction policy and the shortage of sand affecting the construction work, Dr Mahadevappa said the Congress government had introduced a separate law to regulate the extraction of sand and its distribution for the first time.

But the implementation of Act had run into rough weather after the Supreme Court ruled that the sand extraction should not be permitted without obtaining the permission from the environment board in the declared Green belt areas. Out of the 200 blocks identified by the state government for sand extraction, the environmental permission has been obtained for extraction of the sand in 120 blocks. As a permanent measure the state government had been trying to create public awareness about the need to use manufactured sand as an alternative to the natural sand to overcome the shortage, he said.