Road Connectivity:~
       Cooch Behar district is blessed with numerous rivers, canals and beels crisscrossing throughout the length and breadth of the district. Floods occur almost every year. They cause lots of damage to existing roads and bridges every monsoon. Some of the villages of this district are still inaccessible during monsoon periods. No doubt demands for provisional rural connectivity always remain as the topmost agenda of our village folks. The District is supposed to live to the expectations of the people.

       As regards to Rural Connectivity, Cooch Behar District has always accorded utmost importance to any programme launched by the Government with regard to improving the rural connectivity in the district.

Implementation of PMGSY
       The PMGSY stands for Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. It is one of the components of the Bharat Nirman Programme. It is being implemented through Panchayats Bodies as a time-bound programme for rural connectivity. The PMGSY seeks to ensure that every habitation of 1000 population and above (500 in hilly and tribal areas) is provided with an all weather road. The implementation of the scheme is expected to generate the much needed to multiple effects in our rural area to boost rural economy by linking production to markets and services.

       At the time of launching the PMGSY scheme the district identified 679 unconnected habitations with 1000 plus population and about 658 no. of habitation with 500 plus population. The district has started with the target of covering the unconnected habitation with 1000 plus population to begin with. As on date the district has connected as many as about 300 nos. of 1000 plus habitation through a network of roads measuring about 652 km. involving 203 nos. of roads.

The following table shows the status of PMGSY Schemes :-

Implementation of schemes under PWD
       PWD, Cooch Behar Division has a jurisdiction over a total of 522.807 kms of State and District Roads. Out of this about 340.107 km are Bituminous Roads while the rest 182.70 km are non-bituminous. It also maintains 6 nos. of wooden bridges in between these roads. In addition to the roads, the PWD Cooch Behar Division looks after large number of Govt. Residential Buildings (Plinth Area-81225.65 sq. mt) and several non-residential Govt. Buildings (Plinth Area- 93671.57 sq. km). At present this department has taken up various construction works of buildings and bridges.

The following table shows the status of important ongoing bridges schemes under PWD 2009-10 :-

Implementation of schemes under PWD, Highway Division
       The present jurisdiction of PWD, Highway Division, Cooch Behar includes repair and maintenance of roads covering 353 km. spread throughout the four subdivision of the district. At present the department has taken up the maintenance and repair of 8 nos. of major schemes funded under RIDF-XV, UUP including that of under the Core Plan 2009-10.

The following table shows the status of ongoing works of PWD, Highway Division, Cooch Behar.

Rural Infrastructure Development through RIDF Funds
       The concept of Integrated Rural Dev. necessarily calls for focused attention towards infrastructure development in rural areas. The RIDF stands for Rural Infrastructure Development Fund. It was launched by Govt. of India in 1995-96.It seeks to supplement the investment made by the state Govt. by providing loan from NABARD for rural infrastructure developments. The P&RD however began to participate in RIDF w.e.f. (2000-2001) onwards. Allocation for the district as made by the Finance Department of the State are communicated to the Z.P. by the P&RD department. The Zilla Parishad accordingly conceives or formulates and then submits the scheme as a part of different level plan to the P&RD dept. The NABARD finally approves the schemes as may be forwarded by the Finance dept. through its routine perusal and scrutiny. As on 2009-10 the Zilla Parishad has been able to participate in as many as 7 (seven) nos. of RIDF trenches beginning with the VI trench wef (2000-2001). Funds under RIDF has mainly been utilized for construction of rural roads and bridges uncovered by the PMGSY. Secondly a huge amount of RIDF fund has been used to develop rural markets throughout district. Under RIDF-VI schemes to develop some social rural infrastructure in terms of two storied school buildings, flood rescue centers and construction of Anganwadi Centres have been completed. Moreover, RIDF fund has also been utilized for developing agricultural infrastructure through schemes like Sinking of Shallow Tube Wells (STW), Installation of mini River Lift Irrigation (RLI).

Infrastructure Development through UUP Funds
       Cooch Behar being a backward district with more than 50% SC population and more than 25% minority population has always attracted investment of substantial amount of UUP funds for the development of the district. Most of schemes as priorities by the district are being implemented by various lying departments chiefly being by the Cooch Behar Zilla Parishad. The district has been able to effectively utilize UUP funds in time bound manner due to which the has a major recipients of UUP fund on regular basis.

The following shows status of implementation of UUP schemes during last five years in the district :-

Infrastructure Development through BADP Funds
       Cooch Behar district has 396 km long International Border with Bangladesh involving 8 blocks. Funds under BADP are being received by the district every year for the development of infrastructure in border areas. Since inception the district has been able to create substantial number of infrastructure particularly in the border villages of the district with the help of BADP funds.

The following shows status of implementation of BADP schemes during last five years in the district :-