India

India Country Profile

Rural Transport and Development: The Country Context

India has a large and diverse transport sector which caters to the needs of over one billion people. India’s economy has seen high rates of growth in the last two decades and with this we have witnessed a rise in demand for transport infrastructure and services. The sector has not been able to keep up with the rapid rise in demand and major improvements in rural transport are required to support the countries economic growth and to reduce poverty.

Rural transport is important in India as over two thirds of the country’s population live in rural areas and rely on agriculture for their livelihood and in 2000 around 40% of the 825,000 villages in India lacked all weather access roads. (World Bank, 2000) There has also been a shift in preferred mode of transport from railway to road with the roads now carrying 70% of passenger traffic. Three quarters of India’s rural population, constituting the majority of India’s poor are not integrated into the national economy showing the need for better rural transport. There is a close link between rural connectivity and economic growth, employment, education and healthcare in India. It has been shown in India that states with poor connectivity are also states that reflect a poor socio economic situation. India’s Ministry of Rural Development have stated that a nation wide network of all weather roads in the rural areas is a critical link for progress in the country.
India has an extensive river system with 14,500 km of navigable waterways. Despite this inland water transport plays only a very marginal role in the transport sector. The annual cargo moved by inland water transport is only 0.15% share of total cargo moved in India. (Asian Development Bank, 2000) The reason for this is poor infrastructure – waterways suffer from hazards such as shallow waters, narrow width of channels, bank erosion and inadequate navigational aids.

Overview of India’s Transport Sector

Transport Subsectors:
Roads carry 85% of the country’s traffic and the railway network carries 17 million passengers a year. The transport infrastructure is better developed in the Southern and South West regions.

Roads:             Length of roads total: 3,315,231 km (Gov of India, 2002)
                        Length of paved roads: 1,363,000 km (Gov of India, 2002)
                        Length of rural roads: 2,650,000 km (Gov of India, 2002)
Railways:        Length of railways: 64,015 km (CIA World Factbook, 2009)
Waterways:    Length of waterways: 14,500 km (CIA World Factbook, 2008)

Road Classification System

National Highways - Main highways running through the country connecting major ports, state capitals and industrial centres.

Expressways – Expressways are access controlled, feature a divider in the centre and have at least six lanes.

State Highways – State Highways provide linkages with the national highways, district headquarters, important towns, tourist centres and minor ports.

Rural Roads – Rural roads in India form a substantial portion of the vast Indian road network.

Other District Roads - Roads serving rural areas of production and providing them with outlet to market centres, takula (district) headquarters or other main roads.

Village Roads – Roads connecting villages/habitation or groups of habitation with each other and to the nearest road of a higher category.

Institutional Framework for Sector

Government of India: The government aims to modernise, expand and integrate the country’s transport services. In recent years it has made substantial efforts to tackle the sector’s shortcomings and to reform its transport institutions.

World Bank: The World Bank has been a major investor in the transport sector in India. At present, it has ten ongoing road projects in India with total loan commitments for the transport sector in India standing at US$3.48 billion.

Ministry of Transport and Highways: Entrusted with formulating and administrating policies for road transport as well as transport research with a view to increasing mobility and efficiency of the road transport system in the country.

Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD): Ensure that the benefits of economic reform are shared by those in rural areas. The Ministry of Rural Development target five elements of social and economic infrastructure critical to the quality of life in rural areas. These are health, education, drinking water, housing and roads.

Asian Development Bank (ADB): The Asian Development Bank have worked with India on transport for 25 years. As of 2007 the ADB had made 25 loans totalling US$5.28 billion to the transport sector of India – which is about one third of ADB’s total lending to India. Roads and highways at the national, state and rural levels have made up 75% of transport lending, but ADB has also invested in railways and ports.

Central Inland Waterway Transport Corporation: The largest inland water transport operator in India. It has been incurring operating losses since 1967 and relies on government budget support.

Relevant Rural Transport Programs

PMGSY (Prime Minister’s Rural Roads Program): In 2000 the government launched the nationwide PMGSY program, under the Ministry of Rural Development, in a bid to boost rural connectivity through good all weather roads. The program is entirely funded by the Government of India though the World Bank has provided technical support to the MoRD. It envisages providing new connectivity to about 180,000 habitations through the construction of about 372,000 km of roads, and upgrading 370,000 km of the existing core rural network. The program aims to provide full farm to market connectivity and has a total cost of US$33 billion.
The program has enhanced the capacity of states to plan and manage rural roads by the creation of State Rural Roads Development Agencies in each state. In 2008 the PMGSY had provided connectivity to 42,019 eligible habitations serving about 45 million rural people. The PMGSY recognises there is a need to tackle the requirement of connectivity to habitations with lower populations in the interest of social justice and removing sense of isolation of remote villages and bring them into main stream of national life. Habitations with a population above 1000 are targeted to be connected by 2010 and habitations with a population of 500 by 2015. Smaller habitations in the tribal, desert and mountainous regions will be targeted at a later date due to the difficult terrain.

Roads provided by the PMGSY have become important to the rural population of India as they provide better market access improving incomes, improved links for farmers and agriculture, schools that are able to attract more pupils and teachers and better accessibility to medicine. They have also resulted in a spurt in house building in rural areas. The PMGSY also seeks to integrate development objectives with employment ones. It has already created employment opportunities to local people of around 460 million man days per year – though the majority of these jobs are in the informal sector.

Rural Roads Project: The objective of the rural roads project is to achieve broader and more sustainable access to markets and social services by the rural population in participating districts. It supports the building of rural roads in the states of Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir and has brought about a paradigm shift in the way rural roads are mapped, designed, monitored and built. This shift includes people making important choices over roads – there is a “transect walk” where representatives of local communities walk the stretch of the proposed road so that their concerns can be taken into account at the design stage. Further the project has helped lay down an environmental protection code and ongoing maintenance of roads is ensured through 5 year maintenance contracts.

Challenges to Rural Transport in India

The Government of India has made efforts to modernise, expand and integrate transport in rural India. However, billions of dollars are needed to sustain these efforts. The government should attempt to mobilize private sector participation to bridge the resource gap and increase operational and managerial efficiency. Involving the private sector more should also lead to greater public sector performance and accountability. Still the main challenge that remains is access. Some 33% (World Bank, 2010) of India’s villages do not have access to all weather roads and remain cut off during the monsoon season. This problem is more acute in Northern Indian states which are cut off from India’s major economic centres.

Key Documents

PMGSY – Ministry of Rural Development home page - http://pmgsy.nic.in/

Rural Roads – A Lifeline for Villages in India (World Bank) - http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/ EXTSARREGTOPTRANSPORT/0,,contentMDK:21755700~pagePK:34004173~piPK:34003707~ theSitePK:579598,00.html

Rural roads open up new opportunities in villages - http://www.worldbank.org.in/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/INDIAEXTN/ 0,,contentMDK:21710946~pagePK:141137~piPK:141127~theSitePK:295584,00.html
Ministry of Rural Development - http://rural.nic.in/

Key Contacts:

India NFG Page
Asia Pacific Region