Three hundred and nine villages tucked deep in the Himalayas are about to get their first all-weather road link — and the push came straight from the top. Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami's sustained advocacy with the Centre has secured Uttarakhand's inclusion in the first phase of PMGSY-IV, the fourth edition of India's flagship rural roads programme, the Chief Minister's Office of Uttarakhand announced on Saturday, September 26, 2026.

309 villages, one phase — what the PMGSY-IV clearance means on the ground

The CMO's post states in Hindi: 'मुख्यमंत्री श्री पुष्कर सिंह धामी की मजबूत पैरवी से पीएमजीएसवाई-चार के प्रथम चरण में प्रदेश के 309 गांव जल्द ही सड़क से जुड़ेंगे' — 'Through the strong advocacy of Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, 309 villages of the state will soon be connected by road in the first phase of PMGSY-IV.' For mountain habitations that can remain cut off for weeks during monsoon or winter snowfall, a motorable road is not infrastructure — it is access to hospitals, markets, and schools.

The announcement also puts a cumulative number on the table: across the first three phases of PMGSY, 2,826 roads have been completed in Uttarakhand. That figure underlines just how much ground has been covered since the programme began in 2000 — and how large the remaining task still is in a state defined by ridgelines, river gorges, and dispersed habitations.

PMGSY's quarter-century arc — from launch to phase four

Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana was conceived as a one-time push to connect every unlinked rural habitation in India with an all-weather road. When it launched under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 2000, hilly states like Uttarakhand were given priority because of their disproportionate share of unconnected villages. Three phases followed, each refining the mandate — early phases focused on fresh construction, while PMGSY-III, approved in 2019, pivoted toward consolidating and upgrading existing rural roads.

PMGSY-IV marks a return to the original mission: finding and connecting habitations that were left behind or have since crossed population thresholds that qualify them for inclusion. For Uttarakhand — where building a single kilometre of road can involve blasting through rock faces and bridging mountain streams — every sanctioned village represents a complex, costly engineering operation, not just a line on a map.

Dhami's 'strong advocacy' and what it signals for state-Centre dynamics

The CMO's deliberate use of the phrase 'मजबूत पैरवी' — 'strong advocacy' — frames this not as a routine administrative update but as a political and administrative win secured through direct intervention. Uttarakhand, as a special-category hill state, depends heavily on centrally sponsored scheme funding, and the speed of inclusion in PMGSY-IV's first phase — rather than a later tranche — has direct consequences for when construction contracts can be tendered and when villages actually see earthmovers arrive.

With tendering and physical progress under PMGSY-IV phase one now the critical next milestone, the state government will be watched on whether the project pipeline translates into completed roads before the next election cycle.

Twenty-six years after a prime minister promised roads to India's remotest villages, 309 more Uttarakhand communities are finally in the queue. The mountain doesn't negotiate — but it appears, this time, someone negotiated hard enough on its behalf.