National Rural Infrastructure Development Agency

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Research Areas

HOW TO PROVIDE TOTAL ROAD CONNECTIVITY TO RURAL INDIA

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

INTRODUCTION

The road in the rural areas have been planned and programmed under several rural programmes of the Govt. of India. But, in each of those programmes, the targets set and methodology adopted are very arbitrary and not truthful to the planning principles. Therefore, in spite of huge amount of funds being spent over last few decades through Minimum Needs Programme (MNP), National Rural Employment Programme (NREP), Rural Landless Employment Generation Programme (RLEGP), Jawahar Rozgar (employment ) Yojana (JRY) and so many other such programmes, they have not been able to give more than 50% actual connectivity to about 6 lakhs villages. A systematic planning effort using the huge fund, which is being spent on these ad-hoc programmes any way, would have met the employment objectives as well as the network connectivity which are believed to be pursued through these programmes. There is no time to ponder on the mistakes or deficiency in the policy; the country should embark on a massive task of providing

100 percent connectivity to the rural population within a decade or so. This action will fulfil all the associated objectives the Government is aiming to achieve which are generally,

a.social and economic upliftment of rural masses,

b.employment generation in rural areas by making them accessible,

c.creating attraction for rural areas and thus providing facilities there,

d.national integration of major part of the population which is in rural India, and

e.arresting of rural-to-urban migration which has made an undesirable imbalance in the urban population (creating slums).

While we call it a rural economy, there is hardly any major thrust provided to the rural infrastructure of the country so far. The roads are the fundamental infrastructure for any of the other

developments whatsoever to take place in an area. Therefore, extra or preferred investment in rural road may not be considered to be a distorted policy in any sense. Investment in road is also to be considered consciously as partial contribution to all other investments which are probably equally deserving; but road has to be the first choice by all means to make every other investment possible. So far, all the efforts have lacked in this basic principle, and therefore, could not make any difference in the setting of the rural India.

In the past, the serious efforts also could not make all weather roads to connect villages; and if we had made some all-weather roads, these roads could not be sustained. Careful examination of these failures has revealed that most of the efforts and emphases have gone to the aspects and objectives other than the road itself. Secondly, in these efforts the roads were never considered to be engineering structures. These non-engineered structures (the roads built under various rural development programmes), without backup system or facility to sustain them with engineering inputs for repair and maintenance, have disappeared in no time. It is, therefore, necessary to build capacity in the REOs and Village Panchayats along with the planning exercise so that these organizations fully understand these structures. There must not be any inhibition about the technical details of the engineered structures which will be hard to understand for the local organizations; all these technicalities have equivalent simpler interpretation and

explanation which the local organizations are using always in their daily operations. Further, CRRI had even developed appropriate technologies for rural road construction and maintenance using the agricultural implements, which can be part of the construction methodology.

STATUS OF RURAL ROAD PLANNING

In India, the development of rural roads is the responsibility of the state governments. The central government prepares planning guidelines and allocates fund for development of rural roads. The state government and its agencies execute the rural road works within the allocated resources. These agencies implement the road works under different development programmes of the state and central governments. Each agency follows its own mechanism of planning under the set guidelines and all these efforts lacked coordination among themselves.

To achieve sustainable growth in agriculture and industrial sectors in India, it was realized in the early part of this century itself that a suitable road transport network was necessary. Three 20-Year Road Development Plans of the country had provided a major emphasis on rural roads. All these plans, successively, gave more importance to distance criteria for accessibility and also emphasized more on already agriculturally developed areas. The third 20-year plan had estimated that 21,89,000 kilometers length of rural roads (other district roads and village roads) will be built by the year 2001. Various five-year plans have not fully

conformed to the twenty year road development plans. During the Eighth Five Year Plan the MNP criteria for village connectivity was modified as:

  • Linking of all villages with a population of 1000 and above on the basis of 1981 census.
  • Special efforts to accelerate village connectivity in respect of backward regions and tribal areas.

This entailed construction of an estimated 8 lakh kilometers of rural roads. The connectivity criteria under MNP was again revised for the Ninth Five Year Plan (1997-2002). The revised norms for connectivity of villages adopted were as follows:

a.in plain areas
100 per cent of all villages with population above 1000
75 per cent of all villages with population between 500-1000

b.in hilly areas
100 per cent of all villages with population above 500
75 per cent of all villages with population between 200-500

c.in tribal, in tribal, coastal, riverine and desert areas
100 per cent of all villages with population above 500
75 per cent of all villages with population between 200-500

It is further stipulated, that in case the above criteria do not ensure connectivity to 85% of the village population in a district, then villages with less population should also be considered for connectivity.

Even though rural roads are always given more importance in the various rural development programmes, due to its deviated objective of creating additional employment opportunities, the minimum required engineering specifications of the roads have been totally overlooked. In spite of all these lacuna, the achievements in terms of quantum of rural roads is impressive as shown in Table 1 and 2. These tables show the road lengths in various states by category of surfacing and also the village connectivity by population size category. It is clear that all these earlier strategies and actions had failed to improve effective connectivity of the villages.

THE PROBLEMS

There are many inherent problems of planning and implementation of rural roads which have resulted in poor development of road system in rural areas. These problems are mainly related to organization set up, land acquisition, financial resources and planning guidelines.

Organisational Aspects

Rural roads in the country are usually constructed by several agencies which lack coordination between them. As a consequence there is lack of uniformity in planning, design standards, specifications and maintenance practices. The Indian Roads Congress suggested that a master plan at district level be prepared in accordance with the policies of central and state governments, which should be followed by all concerned organizations. In some states, the PWD prepares master plan, but other departments involved in the

mplementation do not follow these plans. Do to introduction of Panchayati Raj system, most of the states now have brought the rural roads under the rural development department or rural engineering department. This may help in implementing the project with effective local participation in planning, implementation and maintenance of rural roads. In some states this process is however yet to take place.

Land Acquisition

Rural roads are often constructed by upgrading the existing earth-tracks. Sometimes these tracks are narrow and need improvement to meet the engineering standards. This involves acquisition of adjoining land which often slows down the process. Moreover, if small and marginal farmers are involved, the road project ends up in a social conflict.

Financial Aspects

Under the changing global socio- economic environment, rural roads are to be looked as a social necessity. Also experience World over shows that rural roads cannot be self-financing, and therefore, to be subsidized. The budgetary allocations for rural road sector are not sufficient to fulfill the requirements of additional construction and maintenance of the existing roads. Moreover, these operations take place under separate heads of capital and recurrent expenditure which are often administered by different departments, and thus adding to the nefficiency. To provide connectivity to all the villages we may need an additional length of about 12 lakh kilometers of road, which requires huge amount of resources. With the availability of cess fund for rural roads, the situation may be eased a bit; but its efficient management only will make any difference in the visible output

Planning Guidelines

The planning guidelines provided by the central government through successive 20-year road development plans and the rural development programmes have been totally ad-hoc. The NTPC, way back in 1980, recommended a network approach to be adopted which has been totally overlooked. The policies and programmes with overlapping objectives of the government only added the confusion leading to building of roads as non-engineered structures without achieving the true rural accessibility.

THE PROPOSED STRATEGY

Many organizations claim to have tested/proven methodologies for planning rural connectivity, but none of those have found place in actual planning work at the grass-root level. This has been due to complexity of the methodologies recommended and the lack of proper data to carry out such planning continually in the local (Panchyat, Zilla Parishad) level. The proposed strategy is quite different from any of the earlier ones, and its actual development shall be participatory with Panchayat, Zilla Parishad and Rural Engineering Organisation or PWD who

    Village Connectivity with Population Size For the States and U.T.s
    less than 1000 between 1000-1500 more than 1500      
SI. No. States/U.T.s No. of Villages No. of Village connected % of villages connected No. of Villages No. of villages connected % of villages connected No. of Villages No. of Village connected % of villages connected Total No. Villages Total No. of Villages connected % of villages Connectivity
1. Andhra Pradesh 13888 4579 32.97 3767 2245 59.60 9700 9402 96.93 27355 18226 59.32
2. Arunachal Pradesh 3176 675 21.25 49 42 85.71 32 31 96.88 3257 748 22.97
3. Assam 18777 1169 6.23 1907 1907 100.00 1812 1812 100.00 22496 4888 21.73
4. Bihar 53234 14906 28.00 3375 3375 55.26 8228 5984 72.73 67569 24265 35.91
5. Goa 172 172 100.00 100 100 100.00 126 101 80.16 398 373 93.72
6. Gujarat 9814 8268 84.25 3249 3249 100.00 5051 5043 99.84 18114 16560 91.42
7. Haryana 3275 3239 98.90 1159 1159 99.91 2310 2309 99.96 6745 6707 99.44
8. Himachal Pradesh 6378 7147 43.72 255 255 96.96 196 196 100.00 16807 7598 45.21
9. J&K 5037 2913 57.83 506 506 82.82 567 529 93.30 6215 3948 63.52
10. Karnataka 8632 6484 34.80 2624 2624 75.82 4936 4291 86.93 27029 13399 49.57
11. Kerala 6 6 100.00 10 10 100.00 1252 1252 100.00 1268 1268 100.00
12. Madhaya Pradesh 53546 14109 22.20 2966 2966 67.00 2910 2745 94.33 70883 19820 27.96
13. Maharashtra 25057 6487 25.89 4987 4987 96.97 6185 6175 99.84 36385 17649 48.51
14. Manipur 1760 716 40.68 103 103 93.64 167 167 100.00 2037 986 48.40
15. Meghalaya 4793 2392 49.91 84 84 100.00 45 45 100.00 4922 2521 51.22
16. Mizoram 395 301 76.20 286 286 100.00 56 56 100.00 737 643 87.25
17. Nagaland 879 798 90.78 132 132 100.00 108 108 100.00 1119 1038 92.76
18. Orrissa 41132 12628 30.70 3162 3162 89.73 2649 2649 100.00 47305 18439 38.98
19. Punjab 8842 8804 99.57 1557 1557 100.00 1689 1689 100.00 12088 12050 99.69
20. Rajasthan 27598 6963 25.23 1990 1990 82.68 3300 3290 99.70 33305 12243 36.76
21. Sikkim 371 263 70.89 43 43 89.58 21 21 100.00 440 327 74.32
22. Tamil Nadu 19867 12091 60.86 2306 2306 99.65 3918 3918 100.00 26099 18315 70.18
23. Tripura 4183 3380 80.80 235 235 100.00 300 300 100.00 4718 3915 82.98
24. Uttar Pradesh 90271 32281 35.76 7630 7630 66.95 10899 10598 97.25 112566 50510 44.87
25. West Bengal 27846 11551 41.48 3602 3602 65.49 4928 3103 62.97 38274 18256 47.70
Total (States) 458699 173332 37.79 45033 45033 77.74 71385 65815 92.20 588008 284180 48.33
Union Territory
26. A&N Island 460 223 48.48 16 16 100.00 15 15 100.00 491 254 51.73
27. Chandigarh 3 3 100.00 13 13 100.00 16 16 100.00
28. Dadra & Nagar Haveli 34 30 88.24 13 13 100.00 25 25 100.00 72 68 94.44
29. Daman & Diu 11 11 100.00 5 5 100.00 10 10 100.00 26 26 100.00
30. Delhi 54 54 100.00 37 37 100.00 123 123 100.00 214 214 100.00
31. Lakshadweep                        
32. Pondicherry 207 207 100.00 31 31 100.00 53 53 100.00 291 291 100.00
Total States & UTS 459465 173837 37.83 58029 45138 77.79 143248 132108 92.22 660742 351083 53.13

Source : Planning commission Basic Road Statistics of India (1996-97)

Table 2 Total Length of Rural
Roads by Type of Surface in India  (as on 01.04.1997)
(includes Other PWD Roads, Zilla Parishad Roads, Village Panchayat Roads, Panchayat Samiti Roads)

 

      Surfaced Roads
Unsurfaced Roads
SI. No. States/Union Territory Total Length (KM) WBM BT C.C Total Motorable Non Motorable Total
1. Andhra Pradesh 140686 45259 34282 90 79631 1735 59320 61055
2. Arunachal Pradesh 12634 1331 2295 0 3626 1850 7158 9008
3. Assam 53787 181 5124 3 4308 16995 31484 48479
4. Bihar 60957 2459 19193 11 21663 4779 34515 39294
5. Goa 7321 353 4343 0 4696 2357 268 2625
6. Gujarat 50834 12560 33405 2 45967 3182 1685 4867
7. Haryana 19651 0 18402 0 18402 464 785 1249
8. Himachal Pradesh 23042 5382 4318 10 9710 5521 7505 13026
9. J&K 8917 2463 3098 0 5561 1365 1991 3356
10. Karnataka 105163 37351 32111 29 69491 16234 19438 35672
11. Kerala 126492 272 32213 4 32489 32092 61911 94003
12. Madhaya Pradesh 1311560 44237 24079 14 68330 59371 3759 63130
13. Maharashtra 281597 166346 49339 19 215704 37835 28058 65893
14. Manipur 8514 741 1017 56 1814 5068 1632 6700
15. Meghalaya 5798 0 2351 0 2351 3447 0 3447
16. Mizoram 3855 0 1154 0 1154 2701 0 2701
17. Nagaland 17174 2220 2400 0 4620 11642 912 12554
18. Orissa 228810 45881 22385 0 69266 9878 149666 159544
19. Punjab 42757 0 42757 0 42757 0 0 0
20. Rajasthan 106341 7371 48966 725 58962 34005 13374 47379
21. Sikkim 1502 668 591 0 1259 243 0 243
22. Tamil Nadu 1811797 62221 58206 1 120428 17841 43628 61469
23. Tripura 12752 1649 2392 8 4049 4306 4397 5703
24. Uttar Pradesh 142884 18645 68929 10 87584 27366 27934 55300
25. West Bengal 42669 454 21239 0 21693 20976 0 20976
Total (States)
Uniion Territory
26. A&N Island 1059 0 1031 0 1031 0 28 28
27. Chandigarh 1269 245 522 0 767 351 151 502
28. Dadra & Nagar Haveli 491 34 457 0 491 0 0 0
29. Daman & Diu 101 1 68 1 70 0 0 0
30. Delhi 1224 0 1224 0 1224 0 0 0
31. Lakshadweep 0 0 0 0   0 0 0
32. Pondicherry 1657 246 900 3 1149 357 151 508
Total States & UTS 1823295 461470 538791 986 1001247 321961 499750 821711

Source: Basic Road Statistics of India. 1996-97 MOST

are actually the owners of the roads. Their involvement right from the identification of the rural road network to estimation for future needs will certainly make it a true participatory planning environment. Therefore, this shall be a planning methodology to assess the accessibility of the rural settlements/population continuously for various infrastructure facilities of socio-economic needs of the rural masses. These socio-economic needs are generally health care, education, marketing of agricultural produce etc. it is believed that success of such participatory planning by Local Authorities in rural areas (Panchayat, Zilla Parishad and REO) with inputs from Ministry of Rural Development and Planning Commission, will bring in a revolution in rural connectivity in this country. And, the face of the country can be changed only by changing the rural scenario giving them or taking them towards equal opportunity. It has already been adequately realised that in spite of tremendous technological advancements in the country and vibrant economics of urban India, the overall quality of life in any situation, both in rural and urban set up, is extremely poor.

It is proposed that at the first instance a master plan for the road network in each district be prepared. These master plans are to be developed using the grass-root level organizations of Panchayati Raj set up of the government institutionalized by the 75th Amendment of the Constitution. Thus, the spatial unit shall be the smallest administrative unit such as Tehsil / Taluka / Mandal where the effort will start.

Then, the most important among all the actions in the methodology shall be a clear understanding and transparency among all the organistations at grass root level which are involved in the development of the master plan. The initial task shall be, therefore, to build a trust among each other and a harmonious set up with dedicated persons. A nucleus of interested persons will be created in each organisation so as to achieve the targets within the stipulated time. The technical methodology will then be taken up in consultation with all the agencies under direct guidance of an expert agency for rural roads.

The district level master plan is expected to provide for 100% basic road accessibility to villages at any point in time. The basic road access is defined as an all-weather road connection from each village to a higher level center of activities for any of its missing functions like marketing, health, education, trade, commerce and social welfare.

The data required for development of the district level master plan shall be as follows:

a.Census data for the population, i.e. villages/settlements as they grow from one census to another.

b.Village directory of census which contain information of all economic activities and infrastructure available in different villages.

c.Survey of India toposheets for the road network, alignments and locations

a.Satellite imagery for accurate locations of the settlements and the rural roads along with respect to other terrain and natural features.

b.Panchayat, Rural Engineering Organisation, and PWD of the State to provide the complete inventory and condition data of existing roads along with the chainages of the links, etc

c.Physical verification of the road location/alignment, geometry and conditions of road and CD structures, etc by local organisations

d.Land use and other developmental features of the District/Taluka/Panchayat as well as along the road alignments.

e.Socio-economic data of the village communities of the district

f.All administrative and political boundaries/limits to be delineated

All these data are readily available from secondary sources in some form which will have to be collated appropriately to use in the required form. Of course, some primary surveys may be required initially. The sources of these data are as follows:

a.Census of India, Govt. of India

b.National Informatics Centre (NIC), New Delhi

a.National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), Hyderabad

b.State Bureau of Economics & statistics

c.State Remote Sensing Agencies

d.State Public Works Departments (PWD)

e.Rural Engineering Organisations, Zilla Parishads and Panchayats.

f.Collectorate Office of the Division/Tehsil/Taluka

Planning Commission and Ministry of Rural Development will have to direct all these organisations to coordinate with an expert agency very closely to achieve the objectives of district level master plan development. The local technical institution in the region like Engineering College/University etc. may serve as the expert agency if it has the expertise. Alternatively, such agency may be taken under the umbrella of a central agency like CRRI which has experience of rural road network planning for last four decades.

The spatial data will be developed platform. This will facilitate all mapping requirements of the Rural Engineering Organisation, Zilla Parishad and State PWD for development and maintenance of the network. These maps prepared on GIS platform are the intelligent maps which will answer queries and guide the network development based on any chosen criteria. The demographic data tables as available from Census shall be attached in full so as to have all possible demograpshic analysis on spatial scale.

The entire range of socio-economic data, which are available in village directory of the Census, will serve as the attribute data which will be attached to the GIS map data so as to fulfil the planning functions to be carried out. The network inventory and conditions data will be updated by the Panchayat or REO from time to time to revise and review the master plan. The methodology will have flexibility of the criteria chosen at any point in time, and the plan generated will be possible to be checked against the se tout objectives.

5. CONCLUSIONS

The basic philosophy of planning road network is to be changes. The presently used criteria like density of roads of distances of the target villages of roads or distances of the target villages of given population size from all-weather road should actually be the outcome of planning. Because of these weak and deficient planning principles, the country could achieve only 50 per cent rural connectivity in 50 years. The vast potential of rural India, both social and economic, is suppressed in absence of 100 per cent road connectivity.

The proposed methodology of district level master planning is going to make a significant difference in the understanding of the rural economy in the first place. What could not be achieved in five decades in terms of assessing the need and potential of the rural India, will be abundantly clear from this. The estimated outcomes of such development are as follows:

An authentic database for rural road network.

A systematic methodology for preparation of master plan for rural roads.

For the first time a true picture of accessibility levels of a settlements shall be available.

Development strategies based on rural accessibility to health care, education, etc. will be available.

Capacity building of Local Agencies in planning, programming and budgeting of rural roads.

Efficiency in decision making with respect to any rural development programme.

Rational priortisation of network development and maintenance.

Rational budgeting and management of fiscal resources for rural road network.

Planning and programming of multi-agency funds through common master plan.

Most convenient data exchange between organisations.

Timely and efficient management will be possible in case of any disaster.

A unified tool for the Planning Commission for countrywide district level planning.

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