Road Development in India

Excavations in the sites of Indus valley revealed the existence of planned roads in India as old as 2500-3500 BC. The Mauryan kings also built very good roads. During the time of Mughal period, roads in India were greatly improved. Roads linking North-West and the Eastern areas through gangetic plains were built during this time. The construction of Grand-Trunk road connecting North and South is a major contribution of the British.
Modern Developments
The First World War period and that immediately following it found a rapid growth in motor transport. So need for better roads became a necessity. For that, the Government of India appointed a committee called Road development Committee with Mr.M.R. Jayakar as the chairman. This committee came to be known as Jayakar committee.
Jayakar Committee
In 1927 Jayakar committee for Indian road development was appointed. The major
recommendations and the resulting implementations were:

• Committee found that the road development of the country has become beyond the capacity of local governments and suggested that Central government should take the proper charge considering it as a matter of national interest.
• They gave more stress on long term planning programme, for a period of 20 years (hence called twenty year plan) that is to formulate plans and implement those plans with in the next 20 years.discuss about road construction and development. This paved the way for the establishment of a semi-official technical body called Indian Road Congress (IRC) in 1934
• The committee suggested imposition of additional taxation on motor transport which includes duty on motor spirit, vehicle taxation, license fees for vehicles plying for hire. This led to the introduction of a development fund called Central road fund in 1929. This fund was intended for road development.

Nagpur road congress 1943

A twenty year development programme for the period (1943-1963) was finalized. It was the first attempt to prepare a co-ordinated road development programme in a planned manner.
The roads were divided into four classes:

• National highways which would pass through states, and places having national importance for strategic, administrative and other purposes.
• State highways which would be the other main roads of a state.
• District roads which would take traffic from the main roads to the interior of the district. According to the importance, some are considered as major district roads and the remaining as other district roads.
• Village roads which would link the villages to the road system.

The committee planned to construct 2 lakh kms of road across the country within 20 years.

They recommended the construction of star and grid pattern of roads throughout the country.

One of the objective was that the road length should be increased so as to give a road density of 16kms per 100 sq.km
Bombay road congress 1961
The length of roads envisaged under the Nagpur plan was achieved by the end of it, but the road system was deficient in many respects. Accordingly a 20-year plan was drafted by the Roads wing of Government of India, which is popularly known as the Bombay plan. The highlights of the plan were:

• It was the second 20 year road plan (1961-1981)
• The total road length targeted to construct was about 10 lakhs.
• Rural roads were given specific attention.
• They suggested that the length of the road should be increased so as to give a road density of 32kms/100 sq.km
• The construction of 1600 km of expressways was also then included in the plan.

Lucknow road congress 1984
Some of the salient features of this plan are as given below:

• This was the third 20 year road plan (1981-2001). It is also called Lucknow road plan.
• It aimed at constructing a road length of 12 lakh kilometers by the year 1981 resulting in a road density of 82kms/100 sq.km
• The plan has set the target length of NH to be completed by the end of seventh, eighth and ninth five year plan periods.
• It aims at improving the transportation facilities in villages, towns etc. such that no part of country is farther than 50 km from NH.
• One of the goals contained in the plan was that expressways should be constructed on major traffic corridors to provide speedy travel.
• Energy conservation, environmental quality of roads and road safety measures were also given due importance in this plan.