Minutes of the first meeting of the National Rural Road Development Committee held on 24.1.2000 at Indian Habitat Centre

The first meeting of the National Rural Road Development Committee was held on 24.1.2000 at 11.00 a.m. at Indian Habitat Centre. The list of participation is at annex.

The meeting began with the Secretary (RD) welcoming the Minister of Rural Development, Hon'ble Shri Sunder Lal Patwa, the Chairman of the Committee, Shri Nitin Gadkari and other members of the Committee. Highlighting the importance Secretary (RD) focused the attention f the Committee members on the terms of reference of the Committee. The Minister (RD), Hon'ble Shri Sunder LAl Patwaji emphasized that bringing 100% connectivity to rural villages was the Prime Minister's dream and it was his first and foremost duty as Minister for Rural Development to fulfil this dream. He mentioned that building rural roads was the greatest service to mankind and requested the members of the Committee to finalize their recommendations within 3 months so that the task of rural connectivity can be taken up without delay.

The Chairman of the Committee, Shri Nitin Gadkari then made a presentation on cost-saving, technical options for bringing about rural connectivity. The presentation highlighted the importance of arch bridges, casting machines and pre-cast fly ash slabs in constructing rural roads in a cost effective manner. This was followed by a brief presentation on Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation and a presentation by C-DAC on how to generate a blue print rural roads by juxtaposing NRSA's remote sensing technology, Geological Survey of India's topographical maps and information technology. Shri Gadkari mentioned that bitumen was an essential ingredient for building roads. however the duty structure of bitumen was very high with almost 85% of the total cost being on account of import and excise duties. Shri Gadkari pointed out that indigenously

Produced bitumen was more expensive that imported bitumen. Further the incidence of duty on cement was very high. He was of the view that by requesting finance Ministry to exempt the construction materials for roads from taxes, one could substantially decrease the total cost of building roads. He felt that the sacrifice involved in waiving these taxes was only national as these would not accrue to the Government in the first place if extra material was not used and these roads were not built. Shri Gadkari said if the Central Government and states exempt all the taxes on the road building material like bitumen, cement, steel etc. the project cost can be brought down substantially. But after the roads are built the process of development would enhance and ultimately the GDP and per capita Income of rural India would go up resulting in more revenues and taxes to the States and Centre. by this way such a tax exemption now would yield more revenue in future. He also said that importing the Bitumen and exempting the taxes on it would bring down its price by Rs. 2000 to 3000 per tone and particular quality grade bitumen at lower price can be ensured. He requested Shri Mohile, Chairman, Central Board of Excise & Customs to have the matter examined. To a query regarding and identifying gaps in rural connectivity for the country as a whole, C-DAC expressed their inability as they felt that the exercise would be extremely time consuming. They however agreed to share the software that had been developed by them for this purpose for Maharashtra Government.

Adviser, Planning Commission, Dr. Rohini Nayyar was of the view that given the fact of limited funds for rural roads, it may be appropriate to concentrate road building efforts in State like Bihar where connectivity was as low as 27%. Mrs. Sudha Pillai, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development Pointed out that there may be districts with poor connectivity even in States which may have very high percentage of connectivity. She felt that it may be more useful to make district the unit of allocation. As regards the number of unconnected villages, State Secretaries urged that we should look not at villages but at habitations as is done in the case of Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission.

The Chairman concluded the discussion by constituting three sub-groups on major terms of reference.

Sub-group I

Sub-group I headed by Shri Sudha Pillari, Joint Secretary (Rural Roads), Ministry of Rural Development with State Secretaries (Rural Development) as members was requested to submit a report on the first two terms of reference including identification of unconnected villages/habitation in the country, the criteria for selection, estimation of total road length requiring construction based on distance of village/habitation from the nearest all weather link. Mr. Gadkari mentioned that different sources of data on connectivity adopt different definitions of connectivity. He desired that the group should examine if a uniform definition of connectivity could be adopted.

Sub-group II

The technical sub-group II, headed by Shri Sikdar, Director, Central road Research Institute and assisted by Shri Tambe and other experts was required to prescribe the optimal rural road design, to examine the cost effective technologies for rural road construction, to map the country wide terrain conditions, classify them and specify the cost per kilometer.

Sub-group III

This sub-group headed by Mrs. Sudha Pillai, Joint Secretary (Rural Road), Ministry of Rural Development and assisted by Mrs. Babni Lal, Joint Director (Rural Road), Ministry of Rural Road Development would identify all sources from which loans/finances could be raised including bilateral lending agencies. Given the task of bringing about 100% connectivity in the next five years it was felt that Rs. 2500 crores to be received from the Central Government from the cess on diesel may not be sufficient, and it may be necessary to examine the possibility of raising funds from the market. Shri Mungle was of the view that given the initial corpus of Rs. 2500 crores and an assured flow of Rs. 2500 crores each year it should be possible to raise funds five times over from the market without any Government guarantees. He wanted the sub-group to examine if there were any possibilities of the cess amount increasing in the coming years. He mentioned that Rs. 2500 crores available in the budget this year i.e. 1999-2000 should not be allowed to lapse so that with the amount of Rs. 2500 crores accruing in financial year 2000-2001 we have Rs. 5000 crores when we go to market.

The Chairman felt we should explore various options for locating funds for rural roads from other schemes like JRY, EAS and BMS. Mrs. Sudha Pillai mentioned that under JGST (erstwhile JRY), funds are earmarked for the use of Pachayats and it may therefore be difficult to converge this scheme with other schemes.

It was agreed that the next meeting of the National Rural Road Development Committee would be held on 82.2000 and all the three sub-groups would submit their report by that date.

The meeting ended with a warm vote of thanks to the Hon'ble Minister, Rural Development, Chairman and other members who attended the meeting.

List of members who attended the meeting of NRRDC held on 24.1.2000 at India Habitat Centre.

Shri Sunder Lal Patwa
Minister of Rural Development, Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi

Shri, Nitin Gadkari
Leader of Opposition, Maharashtra Legislative
Council & Chairman, National Rural Road, Development Committee, New Delhi

Dr. P. L. Sanjeev Reddy,
Secretary Rural Development, Govt. of India.

Shri Rangan Dutta
D.G., CAPART, Ministry of Rural Development, India
Habitat Centre, 2nd floor, New Delhi-II

Shri C.S. Rao
Additional Secretary & Financial Adviser,
Ministry of Rural Development, Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi

Mrs. Sudha Pillai
Joint Secretary (Rural Roads), Ministry of Rural Development, Govt. of India.

Ms. Rohini Nayyar Adviser (Rural Development), Planning Commission, Yojana Bhawan, New Delhi

Shri Alok Srivastava Private Secretary to Minister (Rural Development), Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi.

Shri D. Dasgupta Chairman, National Highways Authority of India, I, Eastern Avenue, Maharani Bagh, New Delhi

Mrs. Babni Lal Joint Secretary (Rural Development), Ministry of Rural Development Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi

Lt. General R.J. Mordeci Director General, Hq. Directorate, Border Roads Organisation, Kashmir House, New Delhi-110011.

Shri J. R. Sarangal General Manager, R.O., Express Building, NABARD, New Delhi

Shri Badal DasPrincipal Secretary, Rural Development, Govt. of Madya Pradesh.

Shri S. B. Sharma Executive Director, NABARAD, H.O., West Mumbai.

Shri Ramesh Ch. Panda Secretary, Rural Developmetn, Govt. of Tamil Nadu. Chennai-600101.

Shri P. K. Jain C. S. (HPM), Central Road Research Institute.

Shri Srinivasa Murthy Secretary (Rural Development), Govt of Karnataka, Bangalore.

Shri P. K. Sikdar Director, Central Road Research Institute, New Delhi

Shri Mohile Chairman, Central Board of Excise & Customs, Ministry of Excise & Customs Ministry of Finance, New Delhi

Shri S. D. Dable Deputy Works Department, Mantralaya, Mumbai.

Shri S. R. Tambe Retd. Secretary, PWD, 72, Praneet, Jayant Palkar Marg, Opp. Poddar Hospital, Worli, Mumbai-400025, Maharashtra.

Shri Dhananjay Mungle 10-A, Amey Apartment, Kashinath Dhuru Marg, Near Kirti College, Prabhadevi, Mumbai-400028.

Shri Prakash Page C.A., P. V. Page & Co., 201, Sardar Griha, 198, L. T. Marg, Mumbai-400002.

Shri Vivek Samant C-DAC, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Bio informatics Centre, 1st floor, Pune University Campus, Ganeshkhind, Pune-411007.