A.K. Garg, Ex- Scientist
P. Ray Choudhuri (Dr.), Deputy Director
Central Read Research Institute, New Delhi

ABSTRACT

The development of rural road network involves several aspects. The two very basic factors are planning and arranging financial resources. The paper discusses both these aspects in brief but in depth. It also focuses attention on reasons for the rural road development not taking place at the desired rate and makes suggestion for making the planning effort to start at the rural level itself by which quicker results could be achieved. Suggestions are given on mobilization of labour, funds, local materials and other resources for implementation of developmental programmes.

Introduction

A large majority of Indian population lives in rural areas and thus their movement and that of their produce form an essential part of Indian economy. No doubt many modes of communication exist but the simplest one is the road network. The Indian planners and economists have given due importance to rural roads after independence but somehow these have not developed at the desirable pace, as the rural road network which has to be developed is large. Consequently it requires more coordinated efforts in planning and mobilization of financial resources. This paper discusses various aspects and makes some suggestions for consideration of appropriate authorities.

Planning

The planning for rural roads does not mean top level planning at the Planning Commission level only though it has done good work but in many cases the efforts have to start from grass roots, that is, from a village of few tens or hundreds persons. A feeling has to be created in these very people that they are getting or building an asset for themselves and future generation instead of having a feeling that government is building a road and that the major beneficiaries are the government agencies or the contractor. In other words they should have feeling of belonging instead of detachment.

If a man had his way he would prefer to live like an emperor with all the comforts, similarly a villager also envies those having better comforts and always prefers to have an all-weather road of national highway standard connecting his village. But if he is made aware about his minimum needs and assured that all assistance will be forthcoming for proper maintenance and continuous upgrading of the road with time and need, he will have a cooperative attitude and would assist in many ways during the initial construction, or subsequent maintenance.

Many times villages do not have proper access. A track having deep ruts formed by carts is the only access. This track also exists in the form of a drain as the farm land on either side is at much higher level. This track in majority of cases also acts as water channel in rainy season. Even the culverts acting as cross drainage works in the embankments for railway track or district/state highways are in the alignment of the track cutting off access to the village many a time. Therefore in order to provide an access to the village, the road should run on a continuously raised embankment and the surface water should be properly drained off to avoid damage to the road crust. But by raising the track road level higher to farm land, the run off will pass over the farm land and this is often resisted by the affected villagers. Incase a new alignment is considered, some farmland has to be acquired and this acquisition is again resisted by the concerned villagers. In this way instead of registering cooperation, resistance is built up.

One way to alleviate this situation could be that land consolidation work can be taken up simultaneously to planning. The land for access road along with raising of the track and proper drainage of the village should also be considered with other facilities for the village during land consolidation. The land for access road on embankment may be considered similar to land reserved for Panchayat land and other common facilities to the village.

In some cases the village get submerged by the flood of a nearby river. In that case protection of village by bunds/dykes can be considered and these “bunds” will also provide access roads on embankment. But the drainage of village has to be adequately planned in these cases otherwise any opening in the ‘bund’ for cross drainage works, may flood the village by back flow when water level is higher on the other side.

Similarly, the quality of road to be constructed has to be planned and will depend upon the subgrade soil properties, level of water table, quantity and quality of anticipated traffic and level of maintenance to be provided. The simplest and first stage of road construction is a properly cambered formation, with reasonable shoulderwidth and drainage system. Proper drainage is a pre-requisite for a good road but even many of our national highways also do not have proper drainage, thereby they remain submerged and damaged for part of the year. If the funds are not available for laying top courses to build up the road-crust, a system of creteways formed by stabilizing the soil by appropriate technique using locally available material may be considered, instead of laying the course for entire width.

The road construction work can be taken up in lean farming period, where by free (if managed) or cheap labour could be available. Similarly the timely maintenance of rural roads is essential. This is from the consideration that once damage starts in rural earthen roads it will develop at a much faster pace compared to higher grade roads. Any neglect will totally undo the assets created in past and instead of upgrading at a later date, only in first stage construction has to be repeated every time afresh. The standard of road should be continuously raised and adequately maintained over the future years. If this aspect is driven home and villagers are convinced, they will associate themselves with the project wholeheartedly.

Financial resources

The financial inputs for all road works generally come from government resources, which may be Central, State, Municipalities, Development Boards, Town Area Committees etc. Since the village is smallest unit of a group of families, it has hardly any money for welfare activities and largely depends upon the governmental resources for such activities as construction of roads.

Many ways of raising the resources for rural reads can be thought of, if a sincere effort is made to develop rural road network. This development should be a continuous process of upgrading, till it comes out of the classification of village road. Some of the possible means of finding of resources are discussed below.

At least some part of land revenue collected from the villages could be ploughed back for their development and a minimum percentage of land revenue should be earmarked for rural roads also.

Another source of raising fund for the rural road development could be, levying a sort of a cess on the saleable produce. This could be collected from the farmers at the market place, sugar mills, rice mills, etc. Many market places (Mandies) do levy a cess on the parked vehicles and produce sold, for the development of market place and for the facilities provided. Even the private wholesale dealers charge commission over the sale. At present most to the farm produce is purchased by the governmental agencies and the price offered s according to the rates fixed by the government, thus the cess to be collected may form a part of the price offered. The cess collected from market place may be distributed amongst the villages feeding the market place.

Village Panchayats can also collect a type of ‘Road Tax’ from the vehicles in the village. The rates could be different for different types of vehicles.

A toll tax can be collected by panchayat from the vehicles visiting the village.

Banks can also be asked to liberalize their policy and should consider advancing loans to villages at nominal interest for construction of rural roads providing access to the village which would not involve greater risks than that of existing procedure of advancing loans to artisans, etc. for setting up their shop, workshop etc. for increasing the income.

Industrial houses, commercial undertakings, banks etc. can also be asked to adopt villages for upliftment. Villages selected should be similar to selection of poor families in a village or district for their upliftment. These families are given some fund for raising their means of livelihood. Similarly a few villages in a block or a district can be selected on the basis of backwardness, etc., but with greater importance being given to access road. The expenditure involved on these roads can be treated as subsidy/grant and other developmental works in the village may be treated as loan. This type of subsidy is akin to subsidy provided to villager on fertilizers or grant given for the erection of windmill, solar pumps, bio-gas plant, etc.

The government can also provide matching grant to the funds raised by Panchayat by tax collection, donation, etc. for access road construction to backward villages. Even the weightage could be attributed to different factors to choose the village to be given the matching grant. The following factors could be considered:

• Population of the village,
• Economic condition of the inhabitants or per capita income,
• Extent of the conditions and/or economic status of villagers could be raised.
• Quantum of traffic anticipated on the road.
• Nature of vehicles anticipated to ply on the road.
• Whether the access road is a terminal village road or it forms a missing link on the road network,
• Whether proper land or raised embankment exist for the access road or whether it can be made available,
• Whether the access road acts as flood protection dyke also,
• Quantum of funds raised by the Panchayat,
• Type of road curst envisaged at first stage,
• Any other factor

The last but not the least is whether the inhabitants of the village are keen to have the road and are willing to associate themselves during road construction and would also come forward to provide labour wholly or partially for the road construction. Some discrete efforts have been made in the past but somehow it did not gain momentum as these did not have enough or sincere effort but was intended only for publicity. In case the villagers have appreciated the requirement and agreed to the type of road, which will meet their requirement, they are sure to afford all help during maintenance, upgrading of the road, which would become essential as the economy improves.

In conclusion, it is to be stated that Haryana state has done a wonderful work by connecting all the villages with district roads, etc. The state realized the importance of rural roads by giving high priority, built black top roads. Now it is reaping the benefit by advancing itself economically at a much faster rate and has become one of the leading states. It should not be difficult to adopt similar procedures in other states as those tried by Haryana state.

Conclusions

It is essential that for quick development of rural road network concerted effort is required during planning which should begin at gross root level by associating the concerned village folk and by convincing them that appropriate quality of road constructed with appropriate technology would meet their requirement and this would be maintained and upgraded with their association. All possible resources should be mobilized for raising the necessary funds. This work should be given top priority, as it is the first step for an economic revolution, which our country needs badly at this stage.

Acknowledgement

Authors are thankful to the Director, Central Road Research Institute for granting permission to present the paper at the seminar.