Patna: Chief minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday expressed worry over repair and maintenance of rural roads and directed the officials concerned to ensure they are kept in good condition across the state.

He also directed the rural works department to formulate and present the new and compulsory "asset management plan" for the rural road network and submit it before the state cabinet without delay.

At present the department has 1.25 lakh kilometre of roads under it and if a compulsory policy for repair and maintenance policy is made, it will require an expenditure of anywhere between Rs 2,600 crore and Rs 3,000 crore.

"It is imperative to keep every road made for connecting villages in good condition. It must be ensured that not a single road is in poor condition because of lack of repair and maintenance," Nitish said.

The chief minister's concern originated from the fact that the maintenance agreement of around 9,500 rural roads having a cumulative length of 35,000 kilometres after their construction has expired and their condition is worsening by the day.

Moreover, there are 1,400 roads whose maintenance policy got over five years ago. There is no universal policy for repair, improvement and maintenance of rural roads in the state.

"You must make a compulsory and universal asset management policy, including repair and maintenance of all roads and present it before the state cabinet without any delay," Nitish added.

The chief minister was speaking in the presence of rural works minister Shailesh Kumar, secretary Vinay Kumar and senior officials after seeing a presentation by the department at his 1 Aney Marg official residence. Development commissioner Shashi Shekhar Sharma and finance department principal secretary Sujata Chaturvedi were also present on the occasion.

The state government has repeatedly asserted that rural roads are its priority and around 74,000 habitations have been provided connectivity so far.

The future plan is to identify all unconnected habitations having a population of 250 or more and connect them with at least one pucca road within two years. It will specially cover 4,647 tolas or habitations of socio-economically backward communities.

According to estimates of the rural works department at present 35,000km-long rural roads in Bihar need repair and maintenance, while the length will increase by around 5,000km every year from next year.

Rural works department engineer-in-chief Subhash Chandra said the department spends around Rs 950 crore per annum on the repair and maintenance of roads and added in the new policy the roads will be divided into three categories - those that were built less than five years ago, those that were constructed anywhere between five and seven years ago, and those that were made more than seven years ago. Repair and maintenance priorities will be fixed accordingly.