Roads that once took mountain villagers hours of treacherous trekking to navigate are now paved, passable, and transforming lives — and Uttarakhand's Chief Minister's Office has laid out exactly how far the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) has reached across the state's forbidding Himalayan terrain. The official account of the Chief Minister's Office of Uttarakhand posted a detailed account on Friday, September 25, 2026, marking the scheme's entry into its fourth phase and the momentum building behind it.

Three Phases, 2,826 Roads, 1,860 Villages Connected

The scale of what has already been achieved is striking. Across three completed phases of PMGSY, ₹11,595 crore has been spent constructing 2,826 roads spanning 21,915 kilometres across Uttarakhand. The result: 1,860 villages — many of them perched at altitudes that make basic logistics a daily ordeal — now have all-weather road access. For a state where geography has long been destiny, these numbers represent a fundamental shift in what ordinary life looks like.

The beneficiaries are not abstract. Students no longer navigate dangerous mountain paths to reach school. Sick patients are reaching hospitals in time. Farmers are moving their produce to markets. Tourism and local commerce, long choked by isolation, are opening up. As the post puts it, 'सड़क पहुंचने से स्थानीय लोगों की राह आसान हुई है' — 'the arrival of roads has eased the path of local people.'

Pauri Garhwal Leads Phase 4's First Round

The scheme is now in its fourth phase, and the first cycle of PMGSY-4 is already in motion. At a cost of ₹1,707 crore, 184 roads totalling 1,228.20 kilometres are under construction, set to connect 309 villages to the road network. Pauri Garhwal leads the beneficiary count with 68 villages — the highest of any district in this cycle. Almora and Tehri follow with 47 villages each, while Bageshwar adds 35, Pithoragarh 25, and Nainital and Uttarkashi 24 each. Chamoli accounts for 17, Dehradun and Rudraprayag 10 each, and Haridwar rounds out the list with 2 villages.

The full ambition of PMGSY-4 is larger still. Across all 13 districts of Uttarakhand, a total of 1,479 roads covering 9,344 kilometres are planned under the fourth phase.

Dhami's Advocacy and the Centre's Response

Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has placed rural road connectivity at the centre of his administration's development pitch, and the CMO post credits his sustained lobbying of the Central government as a key driver of the scheme's expanding footprint in the state. 'The State Government is committed to connecting all remote villages with the road network,' Dhami is quoted as saying. The post notes that his 'strong advocacy' — 'मजबूत पैरवी' — has been the reason PMGSY roads have continued to expand in Uttarakhand.

PMGSY, launched in 2000 as a flagship Central programme to provide all-weather connectivity to unconnected rural habitations, has evolved through successive phases that shifted from pure new-road construction toward network consolidation and upgrades. Uttarakhand's terrain — remote high-altitude villages, narrow gorges, landslide-prone ridgelines — has made it one of the scheme's most logistically demanding theatres, and also one where the impact of each kilometre of tarmac is most acutely felt.

With 309 more villages about to gain road access and nearly 9,344 kilometres of roads planned across 13 districts in Phase 4 alone, Uttarakhand is not just building infrastructure — it is dismantling the geography of exclusion, one mountain road at a time.