PATNA, July 23 -- Rural works department (RWD) minister Sunil Kumar on Wednesday said in the state assembly that all rural road projects having been taken up would be completed based on the availability of funds. The minister, while replying to queries of several members from both the ruling NDA and opposition parties, said the state had overhauled rural roads in last two decades since NDA came to power in November 2005 and there has been construction of around 120,000 km of rural roads and 3,200 km of rural bridges in Bihar. "A sum of around Rs.17,000 crore has been spent in the construction of rural roads in the state over the last many years," he said. He said the state had now decided to give contracts for small packages of rural roads upto Rs.50 crore while assuring the house that projects earlier sanctioned as part of big packages would also be completed. In another question, he said that state government had implemented the rural roads strengthening and management programme for maintenance of rural roads which are over five years old. He also informed the house that around Rs.1,200 crore had been allocated to divisions for completion of pending rural road projects and payments to contractors. A total amount of Rs.2,200 crore has been sanctioned for this purpose, he said. Meanwhile, panchayati raj minister Deepak Prakash told the state assembly that installation of solar street lights in villages was going on in a priority and refuted the reports that around 70% of the lights were not in operation. "This is not true. The contractors given the works for installation of solar street lights also have the responsibility of maintenance of lights and it is being done. We are also going to complete the installation of solar street lights in wards in all villages soon. 97 percent of the solar street lights have been already installed against the target," he said. Agriculture minister Vijay Kumar Sinha on Wednesday told the state assembly that the state government was taking measures to ensure that there was less use of pesticides in farm produce and also regular initiatives were being taken to check water pollution so that farm produce was more organic and healthy to eat. Replying to a call attention motion of RJD's Kumar Sarvjeet, he said programmes like Khet Bachao Abhiyan launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was aimed at checking wider use of pesticides and promote organic farming. He added that agriculture department was undertaking regular awareness drives to educate farmers of the use of organic ways of farming and also the use of soil testing so that there is proportionate use of fertilisers for farm produce....