Towards accessible hinterlands

Those against central-state joint participation and champions of the “federal structure” should learn the rural roads case study. Without the Rs 132,000 crore Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY)—paving or strengthening more than 4.2 lakh km of roads in 1.1 lakh habitations has been sanctioned—rural connectivity would languish in most parts of the country. The irony is that even after this scheme’s scheduled implementation period was completed in 2007, and despite external agency funding from NABARD, World Bank and ADB in some states (although more than 91 per cent of the Yojana is purely government-funded, mostly from diesel cess), it continues to limp along in most states, with less than 72 per cent of the sanctioned work completed.

In the 12th Five Year Plan, the Planning Commission has proposed a budgetary allocation of Rs 200,000 crore, since the Yojana is now at the next stage of implementation, covering villages of population 250. Spanning 2.7 million km, rural roads occupy more than 95 per cent of the countryÂ’s network, so the task is daunting.

States like Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have taken advantage of the scheme to succour and dovetail into their own development programmes. Admittedly, one of the biggest deficiencies of a Central scheme such as PMGSY has been proper and adequate training of state officials. The National Rural Roads Development Authority (NRRDA), which runs the project, and its state counterparts are not at the same level of staffing and expertise, particularly in hilly states. Indeed, most hilly states have not implemented PMGSY with the aggression it required.

Local contractors in many states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are known to have executed the project poorly. What is often unsaid even in the most off-record of circumstances is that the poor quality is a factor of misuse by local contractors, often in connivance with local authorities. To attract bigger players with better accountability, the Union Ministry of Rural Development has been toying with PPP in rural roads (the 12th Plan, too, envisages it), but as we have observed in earlier years of experience, the interest levels among the bigger players have been so low that it is better for the government to stop pursuing that angle, or quickly implement what the Ministry itself had proposed—create clusters of projects to make it at least Rs 50 crore worth to draw organised players into execution.

Integrating maintenance of rural roads with MNREGA has been planned, and will work if local groups are involved. Indeed, local “watchdog” groups were created in some villages during the construction phase, and were successful in pressuring the local contractor into delivering the goods satisfactorily.

The effectiveness of the rural roads scheme is both unquestionable and unparalleled—smoother movement has resulted in quicker farm-to-market and even industrial transportation. The logistics industry, which has long lamented the last-mile problem, sees PMGSY has pinned its hopes on PMGSY as its enabling saviour. That industry is already looking towards doubling its growth in the near future as a result. States and the Centre must endeavour to coordinate better because of an already communicated vision of transformation that PMGSY is poised to bring about in, and adequate care taken to see that it is not merely the villages but their connectivity to markets and bigger highways that retains focus.