Roads Of Change

Though only a fifth of the Rs 1,32,000 crore roads project is complete, it has already begun to change lives in rural India.

Till a year ago, the students of the primary school at Rahu ka Par, a tiny village about 80 km south of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan with a population of 300, used to attend school only two days in a week. That's because there were no local teachers and an outsider took two days to reach the village-including a daylong camel ride to Sam village-and another two to return home every week. But the construction of a 21-km stretch of road connecting the village to the Jaisalmer-Sam-Dhanana route in March 2004 changed the school time-table forever. The teacher now takes classes six days a week, while middle school students go to a school 6 km away at Dabri village.

PICTURE SPEAK
ROADS TO RICHES: The roads leading to Rahu ka Par and Tilakheri (left) have transformed their economic landscape

In neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, the nondescript hamlet of Tilakheri, about 20 km northwest of Bhopal, is witnessing a white revolution of sorts. The village has a large bovine population but till a few months ago, the dairy business made little sense because it was not possible to transport the highly perishable produce to Bhopal fast enough. Whatever milk was produced was consumed locally. But the construction of a road to Tilakheri in 2002 changed the village into a major milk producing hub. "We now have four large dairies in Tilakheri," beams Ramshankar Tyagi, a farmer.

School timings and livelihoods are not the only things that roads have transformed in rural India. Badri Prasad, a wizened 68-year-old villager of Tilakheri, recalls how a woman delivered a baby by the roadside because there was no way of reaching a hospital in Bhopal. "I hope nobody suffers such agony again," he says. At Rahu ka Par, a snakebite meant a daylong camel ride to Sam and then a bus journey to a hospital in Jaisalmer. "Now we can reach a doctor in less then two hours," says Nabiat, the village sarpanch.

1-2-3 OF PMGSY

1 Funds Available Money released to states: Rs 12,850.22 cr Money spent on road building: Rs 10,655.34 cr Cost of building roads: Rs 14.1 lakh per km 2 Roads Built Total roads to be built: 3.7 lakh km Target up to 2005-6: 1.3 lakh km Built so far: 75,561 km Target met so far: 59.15% 3 Villages connected Total rural habitations: 8.5 lakh. Unconnected by road: 3.3 lakh PMGSY plans to connect: 1.72 lakh Connected till 2004-5: 37,000 (20%)

Launched by the NDA government in December 2000 to connect villages that didn't have roads, the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) is changing the lives of people and transforming rural India's economic landscape wherever it has reached. In this year's budget, the UPA Government identified rural roads as one of the six key components of the Bharat Nirman programme to build rural India. The scope of the PMGSY was expanded to cover 1.72 lakh habitations and the Government has set a deadline of 2009. The connectivity is to be provided through good all-weather roads, complete with cross-drains, covering a total length of 3,70,000 km. Priority is being given to habitations with a population of 1,000 or more, after which villages with more than 500 (250 in case of tough terrain and tribal areas) residents will be connected in the second phase of the scheme.

In the past, rural road programmes were faced with two major speedbreakers-paucity of funds and poor quality of construction. The PMGSY addresses both. The project, which has an estimated cost of Rs 1,32,000 crore, is being funded by the Centre from the Re 1.50 cess it collects on the sale of every litre of diesel. Fifty per cent of the cess is allocated to the PMGSY. An estimated Rs 15,782.5 crore has been provided to the scheme since the cess was imposed in 2000. It is being implemented through the State Rural Roads Development Agencies (SSRDA) set up in each state. Till July this year, about 75,560 km-or 60 per cent-of the road length cleared for construction since 2000 had been built.

With 40 per cent of the target still unfulfilled, the rural roads project has a long way to go. But the national average hides the figures from individual states, some of which have completed 90 per cent of the roads they were supposed to build so far (see table). Besides, the process of identifying the roads and disbursing funds got smoothened only after 2002-3.

The quality conundrum too has been taken care of. Unlike roads built by the PWD, the roads of the PMGSY network are subjected to quality checks by several agencies at the local, state and national levels. The blueprints of these roads are vetted by technical institutes like regional engineering colleges and the IITs at Guwahati, Kharagpur and Roorkee. The three-tier quality control system shows that up to March 2005, 89 per cent of the completed roads and 71 per cent of the works in progress were satisfactory. In case a road is found unsatisfactory, the contractor is blacklisted and action taken against him. All PMGSY roads are covered by a five-year maintenance contract with the same contractor.

TRICKLE DOWN EFFECT

EDUCATION: States where rural roads have reached enrolment has improved, especially of girl child. HEALTHCARE: Infant and child mortality down, access to primary health centres, hospitals up. PROSPERITY: On-farm, non-farm and self employment opportunities have improved.

The stress on quality is making a big difference. The PMGSY roads, like the one to Dabri and the 2-km stretch from the Jodhpur-Jaisalmer highway to Rajwa village, were laid in March 2004 (see picture) but still look new, a welcome break from the past when roads constructed by the PWD wore off within months. Surprisingly, the cost of construction (Rs 15 lakh per km) is less than what the Centre had estimated. When the PMGSY was launched, the Centre had pegged the cost of building at Rs 14.75 lakh per km, which has now been revised to Rs 21 lakh per km.

The alchemist of asphalt promises more wonders. Companies like ITC have found that wherever roads are getting laid farmers are responding to market needs faster and better. For instance, shrimp farmers in Kosla village in Andhra Pradesh do not have access to cold storage facilities. But shrimp culture in the village underwent a sea change after a link road was built. "Better quality products are reaching the market faster," says S. Sivakumar, head of ITC's agri business. Hira Lal Paliwal, sarpanch of Dhursar village, says the 6.5 km road linking his village to the National Highway between Jodhpur and Jaisalmer makes it convenient to take the crop to the mandis.

Naturally, there is a groundswell of support for rural roads in areas linked by the network. Farmers in Rajasthan are giving their land for free for these roads to pass through because they add value to their holdings. Sceptical farmers, who initially resisted donating land fearing that it was a ploy to take over their land without compensation, are coming forward now. Cottage industries have sprung up and sales of bicycles have risen in areas where the PMGSY has reached.

Economists say that the rural roads network can usher in all round prosperity without putting too much strain on the exchequer. Right now, the government policy is to set up a primary school within a 1 km radius of a village. India has 5.5 lakh villages, some with a population of only 200. Most of these settlements came up because of poor mobility in the hinterland. If there is a sound and dependable rural roads network, there will be no need for people to live in far flung areas. That will reduce the number of villages and, therefore, the need to have so many schools and other public services. Says economist Bibek Debroy: "If there is a good roads and transport infrastructure, providing public services would be less of a problem."

Even as some states have undergone a spectacular change due to the PMGSY, many other are lagging behind (see table). As many as 14 states have not submitted audit reports for completed projects. Funds for further projects are not to be released if a state's SSRDA does not submit audits of the completed works. "We are in touch with most of these states for expediting the filing of these reports," says J.K. Mohapatra, joint secretary in charge of PMGSY, Ministry of Rural Development.

Uttar Pradesh has failed to put in place its quality control systems and national level checks have found more than 50 per cent of its completed works to be unsatisfactory. In Bihar, Central agencies such as IRCON and Engineering Projects India had to be roped in for building roads after local contractors refused to pick up tenders.

Similar stumbling blocks are surfacing in Madhya Pradesh as well. MPRRDA has invited tenders for 123 packages under the PMGSY twice, but local contractors have shown little interest in pursuing the projects due to the low profit margin. Let alone far-flung areas, contracts for road links like Barkhera-Garhakala in the vicinity of the state capital have gone abegging. "We are inviting tenders for these projects afresh," says N.K. Peetaliya, general manager (Bhopal), MPRRDA.

Ironically, states that can benefits the most from PMGSY-Jammu & Kashmir, Bihar and Assam-have been the biggest laggards. This laxity is both foolish and inexcusable. After all, sadak (road), bijli (power) and pani (water) are the three new basic needs of people. Hopefully, the significant changes the PMGSY has already brought in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh will spur other states to catch up.

-with Ambreesh Mishra and Rohit Parihar

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