16/10/2016
Indian Roadways: Importance; Development and Classification of Indian Roadways
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Indian Roadways: Importance; Development and Classification of Indian Roadways!
Roads have been existing in India for the last 5000 years. In early stages of Indian history, Ashoka and Chandragupta made efforts to construct roads. But the real progress was made during the Mughal period.
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A number of roads were laid during the Sultanate and Mughal periods. Most of the present trunk routes follow the Mughal routes. These routes were essential for strengthening and consolidating the empire.
One such road was constructed by Sher Shah Suri which connected Peshawar to Kolkata. It was named as Grand Trunk (G.T.) Road and joined Amritsar with Kolkata after partition of India in 1947. Presently, it is known as ‘Sher Shah Suri Marg’.
Importance of Roads:
1. Roads play a very important role in the transportation of goods and passengers for short and medium distances.
2. It is comparatively easy and cheap to construct and maintain roads.
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3. Road transport system establishes easy contact between farms, fields, factories and markets and provides door to door service.
4. Roads can negotiate high gradients and sharp turns which railways cannot do. As such, roads can be constructed in hilly areas also.
5. Roads act as great feaders to railways. Without good and sufficient roads, railways cannot collect sufficient produce to make their operation possible.
6. Road transport is more flexible than the railway transport. Buses and trucks may be stopped anywhere and at any time on the road for loading and unloading passengers and goods whereas trains stop only at particular stations.
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7. Perishable commodities like vegetables, fruits and milk are transported more easily and quickly by roads than by railways.
Due to above-mentioned advantages, the road transport has become very popular and its share is constantly increasing.
Growth and Development:
Road transport in modern sense i.e. vehicles driven by internal combustion engines using petrol or diesel as fuel was practically negligible in India before World War II. Following plans have been drawn to develop roadways in India.
1. Nagpur Plan:
First serious attempt to develop roadways was made in 1943 when Nagpur Plan was drawn. This plan envisaged increasing of the kilometreage of major roads to 1, 96,800 km and of other roads to 3, 32,800 km by 1953. The highlight of the plan was that no village in a developed agricultural region should be more than 8 km from a major road or 3 km away from any other road while the average distance of villages from a major road should be less than 3.2 km.
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In a non- agricultural region, these distances were fixed at 32, 8 and 10 km respectively. This plan could not be implemented immediately because the country was ruled by a number of princely states outside British India. The concerted efforts to achieve the objectives of this plan were made only after the re-organisation of the states. The targets of this plan were more or less achieved by 1961.
2. Twenty Year Plan:
After achieving the objectives of the Nagpur Plan, another plan known as Twenty Year Road Plan was drawn in 1961. It aimed at increasing the road length from 6.56 lakh km to 10.60 lakh km and the density to 32 km of road per 100 sq km by 1981.
The other objectives of the Twenty Year Road Plan were (i) to bring every village in a developed agricultural area within 6.4 km of a metalled road and 2.4 km of any other road, (ii) to bring every village in a semi-developed area within 12.8 km of a metalled road and (iii) to bring every village in an undeveloped and uncultivated area within 19.2 km of a metalled road and 8 km of any other road.
3. The Rural Development Plan includes construction of rural roads under Minimum Needs Programme (MNP), Rural Landle
