Spotlight on Highways as Economy Recovers

Meena Rani K — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:39:13 +0000

With Indian economy on the upswing despite bad conditions worldwide, government is initiating action to improve infrastructure to keep up with the projected economic growth for the decade.

Kamal Nath, Road Transport and Highways Minister, is in Malaysia to meet government authorities and prospective investors. He said that last May, the pace of road building was just two kilometers a day. Now, it has increased to nine kilometers a day. The goal is to reach 20 kilometers a day by March-April.

This growth is essential to accomplish 7,000 kilometers of new highway a year to keep pace with the economic growth the country is able to generate. One of the main obstacles to economic growth is insufficient and collapsing infrastructure.

In the effort to make double-digit economic growth a reality, government is proposing a $500 billion upgradation project for its roads, airports and ports. One-third of this amount will be coming from the private sector. India permits cent percent foreign investment in road building.

To make the road building process smoother, land acquisition is made easier and bids are being awarded only after 80% of land acquisition is complete.

Building roads is vital to the growth of agriculture, industry and trade. It also plays a major role in aiding inclusive growth, which is one of the present government’s pet initiatives. Though India ranks second in road network with 3.4 million kilometers of road, only two percent of this comes under national highways, which is responsible for 40% of net traffic.

In spite of the inadequacy of road infrastructure, roadways account for 70% of freight and 85% of passenger movement. The bane of Indian roads is its average speed, which is around 50 km/hour.

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neha — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:47:18 +0000

Though it seems highly unlikely, India’s economy has a new antagonistic presence – that of the country’s throbbing veins – the road network. The plans to expand and strengthen the national highways have so far been over ambitious. Even today, as India strengthens its presence as an international trade entity, the internal trade suffers because of poor quality roads and a sordid state of affairs as far as the national highways are concerned.

A brief look at statistics simply reasserts the worst. While in developed countries, goods carrying trucks are able to cover about 800 km per day, Indian trucks are only able to cover about 350 Km per day on an average. This is because the roads are so bad that the average speed is a mere 20 Km/hr.

There has been some development in this regard. However, poor road conditions continue to wreak havoc for those whose livelihood depends on transportation of goods. Besides the low speed, there are also delays at every checkpoint where not only are truck drivers detained indefinitely, but money is also demanded of them.

A recent study has shown that every year the economy loses out on about $600 million because of the constant delays. This however is not all. One can add about $5 million that is wasted in terms of fuel because of the stoppages and the slow speed.
The volumes of the freight keeps on increasing by about 9.06% every year. However, as compared to the increase in the volume, only about 3.77% of roads are added to contain the volume every year.

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Spotlight on Highways as Economy Recovers

Bad Roads Bleed The Economy Dry