Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The pathetic state of its highways continues to hold India back. Poor roads prevent the modernisation of agriculture,preventing farmers in remote areas from accessing markets that would fund capital investment. They exacerbate unevenness in development,forcing the clustering of industrialisation. They make it expensive to haul materials cross-country,bolstering inflationary pressures along the supply chain. But on the UPAs watch,despite many promises,little has been done to advance highway-building,or even maintenance. This was brought home quite effectively by BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh,which wrote to the Centre asking that 10 much-travelled intercity roads in the state be de-notified,arguing that the state government would do a better job maintaining them than the Centre. To back up their assertion,they attached photographs of the roads potholed,flooded,jammed solid.
Criticism of the Centre is very valid in this case. Highway-building has been plagued by cost and time overruns. As the MP photos make clear,these are not necessarily caused by land acquisition problems but by genuine inefficiency and badly designed contracts; indeed,recent government numbers suggest that when the private sector is implementing publicly funded and internationally funded projects,almost all suffer over-runs. This is not the case for projects being constructed on a build-operate-transfer basis,in which the private partner is penalised for delays.
The UPAs consistent neglect of the road sector is one of the blackest marks on its governance record. These problems in the implementation of construction projects have been understood for years,but little effort has been made to correct them. The embarrassing note from MP should spur the new roads minister,C. P. Joshi,to effect change.
