Network Past Issues

“Country roads take me home…” the evergreen song crooned by John Denver decades ago continues to resonate to this day. That roads in the countryside (read rural) can take the rural populace places cannot be denied. Roads being important in the context of connectivity and accessibility are central to a nation’s economy delivering, as they do, a plethora of economic and social benefits.

Access to key services and social networks has been recognized as an important factor in development. Inaccessibility owing to geographical constraints can deepen poverty as it limits development opportunities. According to Asian Development Bank, structural poverty arises due to lack of opportunity. Not only does it affect people who are disconnected from the wider economy and society, it is often geographically focused. Thus, the key to overcoming structural poverty is the provision of access to adequate infrastructure and services.

India’s road network extends over an area of 3.3 million kilometres giving it the status of the world’s second largest network. While over 80 percent - 2.65 million km – of this network exists in rural areas (NHAI 2014) it is riddled with problems of connectivity and accessibility, both vital to the country’s socio-economic development.

According to a report on Vulnerability Framework (2010), low connectivity and accessibility of rural areas is attributable to capacity restrictions, inferior road network quality, and the dearth of all-weather roads- especially in hilly regions. The result is this: no less than 300 million people residing in 8,55,042 villages of India are devoid of all-season access. This is a debilitating statistic given the criticality of transport  infrastructure to securing sustainable growth.

Many committees have been formed in the past with their recommendations enabling road development in India. Before independence, in 1927, the Jaykar Committee had been set up for advisement on a suitable road policy for India. The committee, while reporting the development of a road system as desirable for the country’s welfare, also recommended that a central road fund exclusively for road development be obtained from an additional duty on petrol.

During 1940-61, the Nagpur Plan was the base for road development underscoring India’s first major attempt towards planning of the road system. Roads were classified as national highways, state highways, and district and village roads. Next in line was the Bombay Plan (1961-81) that had resulted from the modifications in the Nagpur Plan owed to the changing nature of road transport. Then came the Lucknow Plan (1981-2001) formulated to cover all aspects of road development and the management system. The plan proposed a road density of 82 km/100 sq km by 2001. It provided a formula for calculating the road density for each category of the road system and emphasised on network development. The plan recommended separate norms for hilly and other backward areas.

Like the government’s Five Year Economic Development Plans the rural road development programmes were framed with the twin objective of poverty alleviation and the creation of permanent assets in rural India. The latter, too, have been devised to mainly generate more employment while establishing adequate infrastructural assets in rural areas. The focus is on the development of link roads to the villages.

Long-term road development plans continue to play a vital role in the development of the country’s overall road network.

Until 1967 the Central Government paid little attention to the development of rural roads since it fell under the purview of the state government. The Central Government then appointed a committee, which suggested measures for developing rural roads and budget allocation (based on the productivity criteria of the agricultural sector) for different types of areas and interventions. While the committee’s report was not followed up fully it did provide guidelines based on the productivity criteria relevant to the provision of roads in rural areas.

According to assessments, road mileage had been achieved but not pre-set connectivity targets, road specification, and geometric features. Also, the ‘star and grid’ pattern stressed under the Nagpur Plan placed greater emphasis on the connectivity of towns and villages over rural inter-connectivity while neglecting unclassified village roads (forming a bulk of village roads) including footpaths, cart tracks, tracks and so on. Besides, the non-uniform country-wide expansion of the road network had led to considerable regional imbalance in the latter’s development.

Road quality and servicing, even development, were subjected to budget bottlenecks and technical laxity. Moreover, the programmes listed above were deployed more as employment generation tools without concentrating on good quality all-weather accessible roads.

The National Rural Road Development Committee (NRRDC), constituted in 2000, was meant to provide connectivity to all unconnected villages. The committee was required to identify unconnected villages, make decisions regarding road length for total connectivity, and detail specifications for all-weather roads, fund requirement, and implementation suggestions. The committee suggested phasing out the works due to the nature of fund requirement. In the beginning, work was to be taken up in about 40- 50 districts chosen from all over the country. NRRDC’s recommendations led to the launching of a special rural road development programme known as PMGSY or the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. The latter was expected to provide 100 percent connectivity within a stipulated timeframe by constructing new roads and upgrading existing ones to achieve connectivity through good all-weather roads. This programme brought within its ambit several rural road development schemes.

PMGSY- an overview

The Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) was launched in December 2000 by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) in a bid to deal with the issue of rural accessibility. This centrally sponsored scheme is aimed at providing connectivity via all weather roads (with culverts and cross drainage structures that are operable year round) to unconnected habitations with populations of over 500 persons and above in plain areas and 250 persons and above in hilly, dessert, and tribal areas.

The entity under consideration is a habitation, not a village. Top priority has been accorded to roads connecting populations of over 1000, followed by those connecting populations over 500, and then those over 250. Within this priority scheme, preference has been given to roads connecting larger portions of the population.

Undoubtedly, PMGSY has been instrumental in providing last mile connectivity to rural India. The key benefits of PMGSY include improved access to markets for selling agricultural produce, all season connectivity for farmers, a diversified livelihoods’ portfolio, and improved quality of life for rural communities. This was evidenced in an impact assessment study conducted by MoRD in Orissa in three districts after the conclusion of Phase I. Improved road connectivity reduced the cost of transportation of fertilizers.

Improved road connectivity ushered changes in the lives of farmers who reported changes in cropping patterns and improvements in animal rearing, milk production, and market access. They also reported a spurt in on-farm and off-farm employment opportunities, both within and outside the village. What is more, they were able to gain enhanced access to healthcare and educational services.

Increased accessibility pushed up marital opportunities of villages with denizens showing a greater willingness to marry their daughters into villages connected to PMGSY roads. Also, access to government services and visits by government officials have increased post construction of PMGSY roads. In a village located in remote West Bengal people said they considered PMGSY roads to be better than national roads. Shop keepers in nearby towns said they were able to work longer hours.

Roads constructed under the PMGSY are mandated to follow engineering standards ensuring quality and durability with in-built checks and balances. Quality assurance issues are addressed by the State Technical Authority (STA) and Principal Technical Agency (PTA). Tendering is conducted following a standardized procedure whereby competent contractors are invited with the help of notices featuring on the Online Management, Monitoring and Accounting System (OMMAS). The OMMAS is a transparent system wherein each step in the process is documented for further clearance including entering a proposal and detailed project report for design scrutiny and estimates as per PMGSY guidelines and IRC specifications. Other features include e-tendering, standard bidding document, standard operations, and monitoring.

PMGSY applies a “bottom-up” approach as opposed to other schemes that apply a “top-down” one. Due consideration is given to requirements suggested by the community, local MPs, and MLAs. The community discusses requirements with the local Panchayat along with issues surrounding land availability and social or environmental impact that could be detrimental while coming up with a community involvement plan.

Key issues dogging PMGSY

Providing quality roads at manageable construction costs remains one of PMGSY’s prime challenges. Funded by Cess on High Speed Diesel (0.75/litre), this source of funding may be inadequate for covering the construction of allweather roads. Road maintenance itself is problematic considering the blurred specifications under which multiple agencies work during designing and construction, reducing onus and accountability thereby. The low cost roads fall short of maintenance owing to inadequate guidelines.

One way around this lacuna is involving the community by deploying the rural youth during non-cultivation periods. Rural communities could be integrated into the ownership of roads.

Completion targets in several states have not been met. This could be mainly due to non compliance of quality norms and not necessarily lethargy in implementation.

Last but not the least, contracting continues to pose a problem. This is because big players are not yet forthcoming.

The way forward

Overall, PMGSY has met with reasonable success as a policy having expanded the all-weather road network. As indicated above, a key issue associated with PMGSY has to do with the maintenance of this vast network. The good news is that PMGSY-II has been formulated to fill this gap thanks to guidelines ensuring the maintenance of roads constructed under the scheme.

Inadequate maintenance does not sustain road development. Maintenanceis an essential activity consequent to construction activity if the benefit of created assets is to be reaped. Besides, there is an unambiguous relationship between road utilization and return on investment. Reconstruction adds to the burden on national economy costing about thrice or more the maintenance cost.

In order to ensure maintenance sustainability dedicated funds are required. As MoRd states: “Among several issues to be addressed for ensuring maintenance of rural roads on a sustainable basis, the most critical one are need for Government Policy, dedicated funds, maintenance backlog, linkage to initial construction, Maintenance Management System, institutional reforms, contract maintenance, Panchayati Raj Institutions, modernization, experience sharing etc.”

As with other elementary needs including access to health and primary education basic access to roads, too, should be treated as an entitlement. Roads need to be developed and upgraded, for which locally available resources may be deployed to judicious effect. Both maintenance and upgrades need to be facilitated via policies or programmes by the public authorities. Strategies integrating public-private partnership and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), including partnering with business houses with CSR activities in infrastructural domains or those with core expertise in infrastructural development, could be implemented. Setting up systems with such companies could help resolve issues like paucity of funds, resource management, and capacity building of the community and local government. Doing this comes with twin advantages: one, the community could get involved and take ownership while maintaining the community assets generating, thereby, employment for the rural masses. Two, the companies could contribute meaningfully towards the nation’s development as part of their CSR activity.

The convergence of PMGSY with other flagship programmes could lead to a more robust and cost-effective implementation. Convergence could also lead to resource management while surplus balance may be used for other development activities or preserved in a corpus fund for maintenance purposes. Some experts offer a contradicting view believing that convergence could dilute technical rigour compromising quality. Therefore, the idea of intertwining PMGSY with other programmes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) needs to be carefully evaluated.

The ultimate objective is to promote universal access to essential services. Access to transportation could go a long way in fulfilling this objective. Efforts are required to implement infrastructural interventions bearing in mind the social and economic objectives without compromising on technical rigour. PMGSY may be considered as having set a precedent in the area of rural road development.

By: Anand Venkatesh

Associate Profesor,

Institute of Rural Management Anand

Email: anand@irma.ac.in