National Rural Infrastructure Development Agency

G20 India 2023 National Flag Beti Bachao Beti Padhao

Research Areas

Executive Summary

Background

Connectivity is the key to rural development. In fact, most of the development programs are not meeting the desired success, primarily due to the poor or no accessibility to the program villages. It is surprising to note that even after about 60 years of India's Independence, there are about 40 percent villages in the country today (about 3.30 lakh villages/habitations) which are either not connected by roads and even if connected, the roads are not all weather roads & are accessible only for a couple of months during the year.

Due to poor or no connectivity to many villages in the country, educational backwardness, social & cultural backwardness, poor political participation, economic backwardness, lack of health care facilities coupled up with lack of awareness, lack of access to basic & utility services and on top of every thing, stark poverty prevails in many pockets of the country.

Realising this, Government of India in the Ministry of Rural Development (MORD) have formulated an innovative program named Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yajona (PMGSY) to provide connectivity to all the unconnected villages and also to upgrade the existing roads which are not all weather in a phased manner between 2000-2007, that is by the end of 11th Plan period.

Orissa has also been identified as one of the most backward States in terms of poor connectivity, and the Ministry of Rural Development (MORD) have envisaged in its plan a number of roads under PMGSY covering all the 30 districts of the State to be taken up in phased manner so as to ensure accessibility to all the habitations by way of providing all weather roads by the end of 2007. Since about 3 years have passed by from the inception of this program, Government of India in the Ministry of Rural Development (MORD) have decided to commission a Quick Impact Evaluation Study in all the program States for finding out impacts of construction of such roads on the quality of life of the people who are getting access as a result of this road and also to identify the bottlenecks in the process of execution of the program if any.

For the State of Orissa, MORD have listed out five districts such as Angul, Balasore, Puri, Sambalpur and Rayagada from out of which three sample districts, 9 sample roads (3 from each district) and 18 villages/habitations (2 located close to each of the 9 selected roads) have been chosen for the study (from out of the list of completed roads as on 31.03.2003 provided by MORD). The main objectives of this Quick Impact Evaluation are the following:

Objectives

Keeping the above program objectives in view, a study has been designed to be conducted in some of the sample roads completed under the Pradhan Mantri Gramya Sadak Yajona (PMGSY) with the following specific objectives:

  • To assess the status of PMGSY in the State of Orissa
  • To assess and find out whether or not there has been any perceptible change in the quality of life of the people due to the construction of road under PMGSY
  • To assess the extent of fulfillment of the project objectives and identify factors associated with success and failure of achieving the set objectives of the project
  • To find out to what extent the selection of roads have been correctly done and to what extent people's participation/involvement have been guaranteed at all stages of the road construction (from selection till the completion of the road construction).
  • To assess and find out any operational lag in the road selection & construction process.
  • To suggest on the basis of the key findings of the assessment, risk factors involved in the process of construction of PMGSY roads and some possible strategies to ensure timely completion of the roads so as to meet the set objectives underlying PMGSY.

Key Findings

It is a fact that the roads under PMGSY have been constructed only very recently and it will take quite some time for the positive impacts to be visible. Hence, these are very early days for the impacts to be fully surfaced. However, on the basis of the Quick Impact Evaluation made in the three sample districts (Angul, Puri & Sambalpur) covering 8 blocks and 18 habitations across 9 selected completed roads, the following key finings have emerged out:

Due to the availability of transport to the village, the transportation cost of the fertilizers have been reduced thereby bringing down the cost of the fertilizers in the villages. Use of Chemical Fertilisers and also use of HYV seeds have increased considerably in the post road period.

There has been increase in the ownership & use of farm implements by the people.

The farmers have got better access to wholesale market and they are getting higher price for their products which they were selling at throwaway price to the traders from the village itself before construction of the road.

There has been substantial increase in the dairy & poultry production in the villages which are located in close proximity to the newly constructed roads and the farmers are fetching a better price.

There has been substantial increase in the employment opportunities both in the Agricultural and Non Agricultural Sectors in the villages located close to the roads constructed under PMGSY.

In the study villages located adjacent to the roads constructed under PMGSY, only three types of small scale industries are found & they are Bidi making, Pottery and Brick making. The construction of roads have no impact whatsoever on these industries only except the Brick making units. It was observed that due to the improvement in the road, the cost of transportation of earth per trip has gone down from Rs.600/- to Rs.520/- and due to this, the cost of production of brick has reduced. As a result of this, the villagers who are running the brick units are getting a higher profit.

Due to the construction of road, no new medical centers have come up in the study villages, but the positive impacts which have been very clearly visible in respect of the health aspects of the people are:

Frequency of the health workers visiting the village has increased

More deliveries are taking place in the hospitals and the incidence of delivery at the hands of untrained dais have declined

Incidence of Infant & Child Mortality have declined considerably because of improved access of the villagers to the health care facilities

Due to the construction of road & availability of transportation facilities in the village, people during health emergency cases, are able to access to the hospitals, located either at the Block or District head quarter.

The distance of the educational institutions have remained unchanged due to the construction of the roads under PMGSY. But the most positive trend that has emerged out from the study in the post road period is that the enrolment rate has increased at all levels - in the school and college level and the dropout rates have declined. More particularly, the enrolment of the girl child has increased considerably.

The study reveals that number of visits made by Government functionaries within a fixed period of time has increased in post road period as compared to pre road period. The increase in average number of visits per village during a year is significant in case of grass root functionaries like health workers/ANM, VLWs and VAWs, whereas it is very marginal in case of top officials like BDO, Collector etc.

As a consequence of the construction of road & consequently increasing connectivity to the villages located close to the roads, the cost of land price has gone up quite appreciably and secondly many small/petty shops like pan & tea have come up in the road side. It was also observed that many outsiders have purchased land after the road construction with a view to set up industries.

The impact study reveals that the transport facilities have recorded increase in the study villages due to the construction of roads enhancing the access to such villages. The following are some of the findings which gives us a clear picture that the transport facilities have improved:

Increase in the number & frequency of buses plying to the village

Availability of more number of Light Commercial Vehicles in the villages round the clock helping the people to carry their products to the market and also going to hospitals during the emergencies at even odd hours.

As indicated above, although there are some positive impact already surfaced as a result of coming up of the roads under PMGSY, yet the roads have been completed only some months back and only after a year or two the real & sustainable positive impacts can be visible.

Recommendations

Although some positive effects have already been experienced by the people of the study villages as a result of the construction of roads under PMGSY, yet looking at the overall implementation process of the PMGSY, the following specific recommendations have been thought appropriate by the evaluation team to be laid down with a view to ensuring better efficacy of the program in future:

It is suggested that the funds for the construction of the roads may be placed directly with the works department and this will help early & timely release of funds to the contractors, which can ensure timely completion of the roads without slippage of time & cost overrun.

In view of this, it is suggested to make mandatory for the contractors for engaging the local people/villagers in the road construction activities on priority basis whih will guarantee employment opportunities for the villagers.

The evaluation team recommends for construction of the roads using local materials, mechanism and other cost effective technologies, which will reduce the cost of such all weather roads drastically. Such a step will ensure construction of all weather roads within a reasonable cost and such an effort will ensure cost effectiveness.

The evaluation team suggests to implement the road construction activities through the NGOs, R&D Department being the nodal agency which will not only ensure the local people to get employment opportunity, it will also ensure the road completion with substantially low budgetary requirement without compromising with quality.

It is suggested that the MORD should make it mandatory to keep provision of drains in the proposed roads under PMGSY, which will enable their sustainability.

Further, there is no provision of funds for the maintenance of the roads constructed under PMGSY and in order to ensure their maintenance, it may be prudent to make budgetary provision & place funds either with the Zilla Parishad or with the Panchayats for maintenance of PMGSY roads. Alternatively, the Panchayats should be empowered to levy toll tax and should be allowed to maintain the roads from out of the toll tax collected.

It was observed that all the 9 sample roads, which have been taken for the impact assessment, are existing roads and are upgraded. None of the roads are newly constructed. Moreover, in the selection of roads, political pressure and muscle power are playing a very crucial role. Even in the Block meeting, those leaders who are shouting more are able to snatch away the roads to their locality. This is resulting in wrong selection of roads. Therefore, some objective criteria should be developed by the MORD Department to prioritise the selection of the roads which will be able to remove the above indicated risks.

These are still early days of PMGSY roads, since only very small number of such roads have been completed and those which are completed are only recently constructed. Therefore, it will take some more time (at least 6 months to 12 months time) for the positive as well as negative effects of the construction of such roads under PMGSY to surface fully. However, not withstanding this, the above are only some recommendations suggested by the evaluation team for overcoming the already surfaced problems of PMGSY in respect of the construction of roads studied for the impact evaluation.

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