Road Transportation

Road Infrastructure

The aggregate length of roads, which was 0.4 million kms in 1950-51, has increased eight-fold to 3.32 million kms in 1995-96 but the number of goods vehicle fleet has increased 22-fold from 0.82 lakh to 17.85 lakh in the corresponding period. The national highway network, which carries about 40% of the road traffic, is just a little over 1% of the road network. 

Table 1: Growth of Road Network (in 'ooo Kms.)

NHs are less than 2% of the entire network but carry about 40% of the country's traffic. The total road kilometerage has not been growing adequately to meet the demand for speedy and efficient transportation of material traffic.

Road Development in India

The economic development of the country and the consequent surge in the demand for transport services, and also the strategic needs of the country necessitated expansion as well as improvement of the road network. The country took up this uphill task in a planned manner.

Recognising the need to develop arterial routes to link the Union capital with the state capitals, major seaports and other highways, the National Highways Act, 1956 was enacted. In 1957, the chief -engineers (road and bridges development) of the Central and the state governments met in Bombay. Having taken into account the size of area, population, regional levels of development and feature potential, the engineers presented a 20-year Road Development Plan (1961-81) in 1958 which is popularly known as the Bombay Plan.

The Plan anticipated an increase in road length from 6. 10 lakh km in 1960 to 10.50 lakh km in 1981. The Plan target was to achieve a density of 32.5 km of roads per 100 sq km of area, 44 km for developed agricultural areas, 19 km for semi-developed and 12 km for underdeveloped areas at an estimated cost of Rs 5,200 crore, including Rs 630 crore for village roads.

The Bombay Plan set a target of 8.88 lakh km of major district roads, order district roads and classified village roads. This target was exceeded in 1978 with the construction of 9.7 lakh km of roads. The target of 98,000 km of state highways could only be achieved a decade later. Of the target of 52,000 km only 34,619 km was achieved till 1 April, 1997.

Another Road Development Plan (1981-2001), known as the Lucknow Plan of the Indian Road Congress, has made a case for 66,000 km of National Highways by 2001 A.D.

The National Transport Policy Committee, set up in 1978 under the chairmanship of B. D. Pandey, submitted its report in May 1980. It recommended 37 roads with a 12,955 km length for inclusion in the National highway network. Out of these, only 11 roads, aggregating 3,595 km length, were completed over a span of one-and-a-half decades.

The Government of India instituted an Asian Development Bank-aided study in February 1990 on Development of Long-Term Plan for Expressways in India. The study, was completed in 1991 and it has recommended development of 10,020 km of expressways by 2015 at an estimated cost of Rs 58,000 crore.

Road Development Programmes

The centrally funded/assisted notable road development programmes started during various Plan periods were: Programme for Roads of Economic and interstate importance launched during the First Plan; Strategic Roads Programme started in 1965; Sensitive Border Area Roads, Hill Area Development, the Western Ghat Development programmes and the Road component of Tribal Sub-Plan, all launched during the Fifth Plan; and Tribal Roads, Special Problem Area Roads and Command Area Development programmes, etc., started during the Sixth Plan.

To encourage private sector participation, the National Highways Act 1956 was amended in 1995 to enable the levy of toll on selected improved sections Of the National Highways. It allows the private sector to participate in construction, maintenance and operation of roads on Build-Operate-and Transfer (BOT) basis. Two projects of bypass, one at Thane-Bhiwandi in Maharashtra and the other at Udaipur in Rajasthan, and one project of road overbridge at Chaltan in Gujarat were awarded on a BOT basis in 1996. These projects involved investments of Rs 17 crore, Rs 24 crore and Rs 10 crore respectively.

National Highway Authority of India

Set up in 1989, it started functioning only in February, 1995. It is an autonomous body entrusted with the responsibility of development, maintenance and operation of the National Highways and other associated facilities vested in the Government of India.

Maintenance:

The maintenance and improvement of roads, though an ongoing programme, has not produced the desired results due to meager allocations. The country’s road network generates large revenues. But the country spends merely 35-40 per cent of this revenue on the improvement and maintenance of roads whereas Japan spends 128 per cent, USA 97 per cent and Germany 82 per cent annually. The National Highways too are facing a similar situation.

The allocations in respect of highways has declined from. 1.5 per cent in the First Plan to 0.57 in the Eighth Plan. External aided projects for improvement of highways started in 1985 with the World Bank assistance and later on with assistance from the Asian Development Bank and the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund.

The increasing road traffic, as the expected freight movement of 28 lakh TEUs on the roads annually during the Eighth Plan period would suggest, and the heavy backlog of maintenance and improvement, have brought the road network to a breaking point. An investment of Rs 52,200 crore is needed to restore the National Highway network alone.

A study in 1994 estimated the annual vehicle operating cost on Indian roads as Rs 100,000 crore (Rs 40,000 crore for National Highways and Rs 60,000 crore for State Roads). The study further revealed that a good road network can reduce this cost by Rs 15,000 crore (National Highways - Rs 6,000 crore and State Roads Rs 9,000 crore). Since the fuel component comprises nearly 15 per cent of this cost, the resultant saving in fuel consumption would be about Rs 2,250 crore per annum (Rs 900 crore on the National Highways and Rs 1,350 crore on State Roads).

Growth Trends

Growth of Road Freight Industry

During the period 1951 to 1994, the average yearly growth of traffic has been of the order of 8 to 10%. (Source: Transport India 2000 Conference Paper)

Fig. 2 indicates that freight traffic has increased from 6 billion tones kilometers (BTK) in 1951 to 800 BTK in 1999. Such a rapid growth has occurred mainly owing to the flexibility and accessibility offered by road transportation.

Growth of Vehicular Traffic

Since Independence, the number of motor vehicles in the country has been increasing rapidly. The number of goods vehicles increased from 82,000 in 1950-51 to 17.96 lakh in 1994-95. During the same period, the number of buses increased from 34,000 to 4.25 lakh. The total vehicle population swelled from 3.06 lakh in 1950-51 to nearly 302.87 lakh in 1994-95.

The private sector, mostly unorganized and comprising individual operators, has had a dominant presence in the field of road transportation. It runs almost the entire goods-carrier industry and also owns nearly 73.75 per cent of the buses at present. After the Road Transport Corporation Act 1950 became operational, almost all states and union territories have nationalized passenger transport in varying degrees by setting up corporations. In other cases, these services are operated by municipal corporations or registered companies. At present, the number of such bodies stands at 69 with a fleet strength- of 1,11,538 buses carrying 6.88 crore passengers every day. The Motor Vehicles Act 1988 replaced the Motor Vehicles Act 1939 and introduced far-reaching changes in the road transport sector.

The rapid growth in the number of goods vehicles is indicative of the increased volume of freight handled by road.

Fig. 1
(Source: Study on Trucking Operations in India- Problems and Potential; Asian Institute of Transport Development)

Fig. 2
(Source: Transport India 2000)
Note: Figures for LCV for the years 1995, 1997 N.A.)

The no. of goods vehicles has been steadily increasing; however it is still not sufficient to meet the high demand. The annual growth of trucks during the period 1995-96 has been negative (-6.3%) as indicated in Fig.2 indicating that during this period the growth of other goods vehicles such as LCVs was far more greater, whereas it has sharply increased to 13.5% between 1996-97.

Indian Road Freight Industry

Organised Vs. Unorganised Sector

Fig 3.

The road freight industry stands out unique with the majority of the market share held by the unorganized sector. Out of the entire market size of approximately Rs. 38,000 crores, Rs 6000 crores is with the organized sector and the remaining with the unorganized sector. Fig. 3 indicates that organized sector has only a miniscule 14%share of the total road freight transportation industry.