A question in the Lok Sabha asked the Ministry of Rural Development five things about the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), the rural roads scheme, state by state: the funds released, used and left unspent since 2020-21, with underuse and project delays; the number of projects pending, with their original dates of sanction and completion and their present stage; the delayed projects whose cost went up, with the original and revised cost; the projects terminated or scrapped, and the cost of doing so; and the habitations left out of PMGSY-IV because it uses the population figures of the 2011 Census.
What the answer does not give
It answers the first part with a table of money. For everything else it gives no number for any state. Asked for the projects pending and their dates, it says these are “dynamically tracked and maintained” on the scheme’s online portal, and gives the portal’s address. Asked for delayed projects whose cost went up, and for projects terminated or scrapped, it says the scheme has no provision to raise a sanctioned cost and that any cost escalation “must be entirely borne by the respective State Government”. It does not say how much the states have borne, or how many projects were terminated. Asked for the habitations left out of PMGSY-IV, it gives the scheme’s target instead: about 25,000 unconnected habitations and 62,500 km of road, with an outlay of Rs 70,125 crore. It gives no count of habitations left out.
What it does give on time is the rule and the deadlines: the time limits for finishing a road or a bridge from the date of the work order, and the dates by which each part of the scheme must finish: PMGSY-I and RCPLWEA, residual, ongoing projects extended up to March 2027; PMGSY-II, extended window expired on 31 March 2026; PMGSY-III, March 2028; Long Span Bridges in hilly areas up to March 2029; PMGSY-IV, till March 2029.
Nothing unspent, though spending is lower
The table gives, for 32 states and union territories, the central share released from 2020-21 to 27 July 2026, Rs 83,529 crore; the expenditure, including the states’ own share, Rs 1,32,447.73 crore; and the unspent balance, Rs 16.24 crore, all of it in Ladakh (Rs 9.04 crore), Uttar Pradesh (Rs 4.30 crore) and Punjab (Rs 2.90 crore).
In 3 rows the expenditure, with the state share in it, is lower than the central share alone: Jammu & Kashmir (Rs 6,562.57 crore released, Rs 6,497.91 crore spent), Tripura (Rs 936.34 crore released, Rs 880.62 crore spent) and Puducherry (Rs 72.08 crore released, Rs 61.28 crore spent). Together the gap is Rs 131.18 crore, about 8 times the unspent balance of the whole table, and each of the 3 rows shows an unspent balance of nil. The answer does not say how the unspent balance is worked out, or why these rows differ.
Source: Ministry of Rural Development, answer to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 2548, 4 August 2026, Annexure. Goa shows nil in every column and is not drawn.
A week later, a count
On 11 August 2026, answering Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 3839, the same ministry gave a national figure: as on 6 August 2026, 12,447 road works of 41,368 km and 1,775 bridge works were “at various stages of construction”. It is not split by state and does not say how many of them are late. The same answer gives funds year by year: for 2026-27, as on 6 August 2026, Rs 2,133.04 crore had been released against an indicative allocation of Rs 16,498.55 crore, 12.9%. The two answers start in different years and stop on different dates, so we set them side by side and do not subtract one from the other.
Adds up
The central share column adds up to Rs 83,529.02 crore against a printed Rs 83,529.00 crore, and the expenditure column to Rs 1,32,447.71 crore against a printed Rs 1,32,447.73 crore: rounding differences of Rs 0.02 crore each. The unspent balance column adds up exactly, to Rs 16.24 crore. The PMGSY-IV outlay of Rs 70,125 crore is exactly its central share, Rs 49,087.50 crore, and state share, Rs 21,037.50 crore, added together.
Got it right
The money table is complete for every state, dated and adds up, and the answer states the scheme’s rules plainly: the time allowed for each kind of work, the deadline for each part of the scheme, and who pays when a project costs more than sanctioned. A week later the ministry added a national count of the works under construction. Uttar Pradesh reports the most spending, Rs 12,953.38 crore, and Bihar the most spending for each rupee of central share, Rs 2.62.
Every state and union territory
Rs crore, 2020-21 to 27 July 2026, ordered by expenditure. Marked rows show expenditure below the central share released.
| State / UT | Central share released | Expenditure (incl. state share) | Unspent balance | Spent for each Rs 1 of central share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Uttar Pradesh | 8,414.60 | 12,953.38 | 4.30 | 1.54 |
| Bihar | 4,518.73 | 11,847.61 | 0.00 | 2.62 |
| Madhya Pradesh | 5,908.97 | 9,560.29 | 0.00 | 1.62 |
| Odisha | 4,711.69 | 8,474.00 | 0.00 | 1.80 |
| Assam | 5,572.39 | 7,363.49 | 0.00 | 1.32 |
| Jammu & Kashmir * | 6,562.57 | 6,497.91 | 0.00 | 0.99 |
| Uttarakhand | 5,456.74 | 6,418.07 | 0.00 | 1.18 |
| Chhattisgarh | 3,768.19 | 6,394.69 | 0.00 | 1.70 |
| Maharashtra | 3,320.44 | 6,242.68 | 0.00 | 1.88 |
| Jharkhand | 2,551.95 | 5,859.10 | 0.00 | 2.30 |
| Arunachal Pradesh | 4,561.03 | 5,843.49 | 0.00 | 1.28 |
| Himachal Pradesh | 4,309.08 | 5,512.19 | 0.00 | 1.28 |
| Tamil Nadu | 2,914.99 | 5,375.15 | 0.00 | 1.84 |
| West Bengal | 2,376.88 | 4,484.10 | 0.00 | 1.89 |
| Rajasthan | 2,457.80 | 4,242.26 | 0.00 | 1.73 |
| Karnataka | 1,684.84 | 3,691.18 | 0.00 | 2.19 |
| Andhra Pradesh | 1,594.23 | 2,958.96 | 0.00 | 1.86 |
| Meghalaya | 2,057.64 | 2,516.98 | 0.00 | 1.22 |
| Telangana | 1,070.51 | 2,490.53 | 0.00 | 2.33 |
| Manipur | 2,124.33 | 2,280.87 | 0.00 | 1.07 |
| Gujarat | 1,209.67 | 2,036.00 | 0.00 | 1.68 |
| Punjab | 1,021.69 | 1,948.09 | 2.90 | 1.91 |
| Mizoram | 1,098.20 | 1,611.28 | 0.00 | 1.47 |
| Haryana | 622.99 | 1,078.84 | 0.00 | 1.73 |
| Sikkim | 859.75 | 1,057.54 | 0.00 | 1.23 |
| Ladakh | 545.42 | 1,002.10 | 9.04 | 1.84 |
| Keralam | 540.52 | 990.69 | 0.00 | 1.83 |
| Tripura * | 936.34 | 880.62 | 0.00 | 0.94 |
| Nagaland | 643.72 | 715.12 | 0.00 | 1.11 |
| Puducherry * | 72.08 | 61.28 | 0.00 | 0.85 |
| Andaman & Nicobar | 41.04 | 59.22 | 0.00 | 1.44 |
| Goa | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | – |
| Printed total | 83,529.00 | 1,32,447.73 | 16.24 | 1.59 |
How we did this
- Source: the Ministry of Rural Development’s answer to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 2548, answered on 4 August 2026, Annexure (as on 27 July 2026), read with its answer to Unstarred Question 3839, answered on 11 August 2026.
- The Word file was parsed and every row checked against the PDF. Every column was summed against its printed total; the differences are set out under Adds up.
- Spending for each rupee of central share is the expenditure column divided by the central share column, to two decimals. The two answers cover different periods and are not subtracted from each other.
- Download the data: pmgsy-funds-by-state-2020-21-to-2026-07-27.csv. Our method and labels are on the Data Audit method page.
Questions
How can the unspent balance be nil where spending is below the central share released?
In Jammu & Kashmir, Tripura and Puducherry, expenditure including the state share is below the central share released from 2020-21 to 27 July 2026, and the unspent balance is shown as nil. The answer does not say how the unspent balance is worked out, or why these rows differ, so we report them as printed and label the audit Needs explanation.
Why do most states show spending well above the central share?
The expenditure column includes the state share and the central share column does not. The answer does not give each state's share of the cost, so the spending for each rupee of central share in the table is not a measure of how well a state performs; it is the ratio of two printed columns.
Where are the project-by-project details?
The answer says the number of projects pending, their dates of sanction and their stage of work are tracked on the scheme's Online Management, Monitoring and Accounting System (OMMAS) portal, and gives its address. This audit uses only the answers given to Parliament, which are fixed on the day they are given; the portal is live and changes.
Where does the data come from?
From the Ministry of Rural Development's answers to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 2548, answered on 4 August 2026 (Annexure, as on 27 July 2026), and Unstarred Question 3839, answered on 11 August 2026 (part (a) and Annexure, as on 6 August 2026).
Corrections
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