It’s a project to connect rural India with urban parts. It’s also a means to ensure inclusive growth. But the reality at the ground level is dismal. By ATUL BHARDWAJ
In the US, the ‘good roads’ movement started
towards the turn of the 20th century, and it was led by bicyclists from the League of American Wheelmen. He believed that states, nations and communities should be physically connected – through roads, rail, or air. This is the reason that he thought about mega ‘connectivity’ projects – a road through north eastern states, Myanmar, Thailand to Cambodia and Laos, a rail link through central Asia to Turkey, open skies policy with ASEAN and, of course, the Golden Quadrilateral and freight corridor. But of all these dreams, it was the last one that took off during the NDA regime. Roads, contend experts, would entail an investment of $88 billion, out of the projected $500 billion in infrastructure projects, over the next five years.
The former government’s focus on highways and expressways was necessitated by the fact that although the 33 lakh km of road network in the country is one of the largest in the world, only 66,000 km of national highways, or just 2% of the total, carry 40% of the nation’s traffic. However, the moment the Congress-led UPA government came to power in May 2004, it realised that it must also develop rural roads and state highways to ring in ‘inclusive’ growth. Golden Quadrilateral took a slightly back seat, and the government decided to simultaneously bridge the mother of all divides by proposing to add loads of bitumen to kuccha roads.
Concerned about the growing gap between Bharat and India, the policy makers launched the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) in 2005. The aim was to provide “all weather access to unconnected habitations”. PMGSY, the 100% centrally-sponsored scheme is estimated to cost Rs.48,0000 crores over a period of six years, and it involves the participation of state governments and grassroots administrative machinery to execute and implement the project. The government has adopted the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model for it.
Even multilateral funding agencies seem quite enthused by the scale of PMGSY. For example, the World Bank has decided to put in $400 million in the project for roads in the states of Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. According to World Bank sources, over 50% of the finances have been disbursed, and the remaining would be done soon; the multilateral agency will close the accounts for the project by March 31, 2010. Even the past three union Budgets have allocated huge sums for the project. Today, it has become a critical ingredient of Congress’ strategy to woo the aam admi.
However, despite stringent procedures and the involvement of global funding institutions and private contractors, the common man is skeptical about the quality of roads that will be constructed. People fear that like in the case of most schemes, which are announced with great fanfare, this will end up as a tool for corrupt officials to siphon off the taxpayers’ money. The question which such grandiose plans evince is: do officials care about proper implementation of such projects? The prime example of such apathy is indicated by the much-touted Delhi-Gurgaon expressway, where little thought was given to delays that could occur at the toll-collection point.
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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
In the US, the ‘good roads’ movement started
towards the turn of the 20th century, and it was led by bicyclists from the League of American Wheelmen. He believed that states, nations and communities should be physically connected – through roads, rail, or air. This is the reason that he thought about mega ‘connectivity’ projects – a road through north eastern states, Myanmar, Thailand to Cambodia and Laos, a rail link through central Asia to Turkey, open skies policy with ASEAN and, of course, the Golden Quadrilateral and freight corridor. But of all these dreams, it was the last one that took off during the NDA regime. Roads, contend experts, would entail an investment of $88 billion, out of the projected $500 billion in infrastructure projects, over the next five years.The former government’s focus on highways and expressways was necessitated by the fact that although the 33 lakh km of road network in the country is one of the largest in the world, only 66,000 km of national highways, or just 2% of the total, carry 40% of the nation’s traffic. However, the moment the Congress-led UPA government came to power in May 2004, it realised that it must also develop rural roads and state highways to ring in ‘inclusive’ growth. Golden Quadrilateral took a slightly back seat, and the government decided to simultaneously bridge the mother of all divides by proposing to add loads of bitumen to kuccha roads.
Concerned about the growing gap between Bharat and India, the policy makers launched the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) in 2005. The aim was to provide “all weather access to unconnected habitations”. PMGSY, the 100% centrally-sponsored scheme is estimated to cost Rs.48,0000 crores over a period of six years, and it involves the participation of state governments and grassroots administrative machinery to execute and implement the project. The government has adopted the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model for it.
Even multilateral funding agencies seem quite enthused by the scale of PMGSY. For example, the World Bank has decided to put in $400 million in the project for roads in the states of Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. According to World Bank sources, over 50% of the finances have been disbursed, and the remaining would be done soon; the multilateral agency will close the accounts for the project by March 31, 2010. Even the past three union Budgets have allocated huge sums for the project. Today, it has become a critical ingredient of Congress’ strategy to woo the aam admi.
However, despite stringent procedures and the involvement of global funding institutions and private contractors, the common man is skeptical about the quality of roads that will be constructed. People fear that like in the case of most schemes, which are announced with great fanfare, this will end up as a tool for corrupt officials to siphon off the taxpayers’ money. The question which such grandiose plans evince is: do officials care about proper implementation of such projects? The prime example of such apathy is indicated by the much-touted Delhi-Gurgaon expressway, where little thought was given to delays that could occur at the toll-collection point.
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
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