Transport and Communications Bulletin for Asia and the Pacific No.

81, 2011

DEVELOPMENT OF A SUSTAINABLE RURAL ROADS MAINTENANCE

SYSTEM IN INDIA: KEY ISSUES

Ashoke K. Sarkar*

ABSTRACT

Rural road sector in India got a major boost with the introduction of thePrime
Minister Rural Roads Programme of 2000. The programme is going to be in
existence until the goal of connecting all habitations with populations over 250 by all-
weather roads is achieved. The major challenge now is to both expand the existing
network of roads to include access to remote areas and to upgrade and maintain
already existing roads. It has been suggested in this article to consider maintenance
as a part of the overall road asset management system. Considering that the process
would be fairly complex, it has been proposed to take a step-by-step approach. To
that end, an outline has been presented for developing rural road management in
India. An institutional arrangement has also been proposed on the basis of three
types of maintenance- routine, periodic and emergency. Keeping in mind that
community participation is the key to the success of any future maintenance strategy,
good practices of involving community in a few selected countries have been
discussed which may help in developing an appropriate participatory approach in
India. There are many issues to be addressed for the successful implementation of a
rural roads maintenance system. A few of the major ones have been highlighted
here, such as the classification of rural roads and the managing of them all under one
umbrella administration; the decentralization of responsibilities; the availability of
relevant data; the development of manuals for road maintenance; the shortage of
man-power; the critical involvement of the community and schemes to include social
development issues.

INTRODUCTION

The necessity of a proper road network for the development of the country
was understood quite early in India. The first road development plan (1943-61),
popularly known as the Nagpur Plan, looked at the road needs of the country on a
long term basis, and for the first time, classified the road system into a functional
hierarchy comprised of National Highways (NH), State Highways (SH), Major District
Roads (MDR), Other District Roads (ODR) and Village Roads (VR). The last two
classes form the rural road system. Sufficient emphasis was given in the subsequent
20-year road development plan to increase road density by constructing roads of all
categories. The latest rural road development plan vision 2025 has emphasized a
planned rural road network development at the district level with the goal of
connecting all habitations with populations over 250 by all-weather roads by the year
2021-22.

Constitutionally, the development of rural roads is the responsibility of the

state government in India and thus the central government was not directly involved
in the funding of rural road projects. However, from the fifth five-year plan of India,

*
Ashoke K. Sarkar, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Birla Institute of Technology and
Science, Pilani (India), Email: asarkarbits@gmail.com

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Transport and Communications Bulletin for Asia and the Pacific No. 81, 2011

the central government started funding rural road projects through various
programmes such as the Minimum Needs Programme (MNP), the National Rural
Employment Programme (NREP), the Rural Landless Employment Guarantee
Programme (RLEGP) and Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY). There is overwhelming
evidence that the provision of rural roads is a crucial factor in reducing poverty in
rural areas (Ministry of Rural Development, 2007). Keeping this fact in mind, the
Government of India initiated a programme in the year 2000 solely for rural road
development, popularly known as the Prime Minister Gram Sadak Yojana
Programme (PMGSY), with the objective of connecting all villages having populations
over 500 by the end of 2007. Recently, Bharat Nirman, a time bound business plan
was initiated to provide rural infrastructure during 2005-2009, in which rural roads
was made one of the components was and blended with the PMGSY programme.
Besides providing connectivity to unconnected villages, it also aims to upgrade
existing rural roads for overall road network development.

The major challenge before the country is both expansion of the network to
connect all unconnected villages and to upgrade and maintain the existing village
road network. As a strategy it has been suggested in the Rural Road Development
Plan: Vision 2025 to introduce a Rural Road Management Act, which emphasizes:

x defining the powers, functions and obligations of the departments in charge of

rural roads;
x creating a detailed data-base in the form of a register of all public roads at the
block level;
x establishing serviceability standards of roads; and
x requiring an asset management system to be instituted

The PMGSY roads constitute only a small percentage of the total rural road
network in the country. It is well known that rural roads are not properly maintained
due to lack of funds and because they are not given the importance they deserve.
Thus, while discussing sustainable rural roads maintenance, a number of issues are
to be resolved with respect to how future maintenance can be funded and organized.
Logically, the entire network should be considered, but the question becomes
whether sufficient funds will be available over the years to maintain such a huge
network. If only the PMGSY roads are maintained, the goal of providing complete
access to rural areas is not achieved because very often accessibility to National
Highways, State Highways, Major District Roads or the nearest towns is provided by
PMGSY roads through Other District Roads, pantheist and various other kinds of
local rural roads. Secondly, this lack of consistency regarding roads might create
dissatisfaction in villages that are not connected by PMGSY roads. Thus, a number
of issues need to be resolved before a proper sustainable rural road maintenance
system is developed.

An attempt has been made in this article to suggest an institutional structure

for the development and implementation of a rural road management system in India
Related issues have also been discussed.

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Transport and Communications Bulletin for Asia and the Pacific No. 81, 2011

I. NEED FOR PROPER MANAGEMENT OF RURAL ROADS

The government has provided substantial funding for the development of a
rural road infrastructure though various programmes since independence. Since
2000, high quality all-weather roads have been constructed under the PMGSY and
the Bart Norman programmes. One of the conditions for the construction of these
roads was that the maintenance for the first five years would be the responsibility of
the concerned contractor. The state government had to give guarantees that they
would be responsible for the maintenance of these roads after the initial five years.
However, most of the state governments in India have problems in providing funds
for road maintenance. The need for such maintenance has increased further as the
newly constructed PMGSY roads are deteriorating faster than expected due to the
diversion of heavily loaded vehicles on to these roads.
There were over 2.9 million km of rural roads in India in 2001. The huge
wealth created in the country, at a heavy cost to the society, should be maintained
and preserved adequately. The agencies responsible for providing these roads must
maintain, improve and preserve this asset. At the same time, the financial and human
resources needed to achieve the performance objectives of the road network are
scarce and must therefore be managed carefully. Since these roads are under the
scrutiny of the public and particularly the users of the asset, who increasingly
demand improved levels of service, there is a need to develop an effective
management system to improve efficiency, transparency and accountability in the
management of rural roads. Some estimates put the replacement value of the
existing rural road infrastructure in India at Rs.2000 billion (US$46 billion). These
assets are deteriorating every year. In comparison with the value of the assets, the
annual cost of maintaining them is estimated to be some Rs.75 billion (US$1.7
billion) a mere 4 per cent of the asset value (ILO 2005).
Maintenance of roads should be considered a part of the overall road asset
management system. Asset Management may be defined as minimizing the life cycle
cost of managing deteriorating road facilities, including construction costs, while
maintaining the level of service provided to road users with limited financial and
human resources, maintaining the existing road assets in good condition, and clearly
explaining these activities to the public. The asset management process includes the
maintenance, renewal and up-grading of existing assets; the creation of new assets
and the disposal of surplus assets (Fig. 1). However, surplus assets are usually not
observed in rural roads sectors in India where there is tremendous demand for the
construction of new roads.
Figure 1. Maintenance as a component of Asset Management Process

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Transport and Communications Bulletin for Asia and the Pacific No. 81, 2011

II. OUTLINE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A

RURAL ROADS MANAGEMENT IN INDIA

Since the development of a rural roads management system would have

complexities, attempts are to be made to take it step by step so that at the end an
effective and robust system might be obtained. The possible steps involved in the
development of such a system are shown in Figure 2.

Considering the fact that rural roads comprise a variety of roads under
various departments of the government, the first thing to be decided for developing
the maintenance management system is the smallest unit to be considered for this
purpose. It may be at the block or panchayat or district level. However, for the
effective implementation, a mechanism needs to be developed to integrate the
smallest units to a larger unit to ensure uniformity and to guarantee the equitable
distribution of funds. Sometimes, there is confusion as to whether a road is under the
jurisdiction of the state PWD or the Panchayat or the municipality. The categories of
roads to be included in the management system must be clearly defined and
managed under the same administrative set-up.

Initially, it might be difficult to incorporate all of the various types of roads into
the development of a rural roads management system. Therefore, the order in which
each type of road is incorporated should be clearly identified. In the beginning, it
would be wise to incorporate only those roads for which the organization already has
a management system in place or such systems have been developed and applied in
other places successfully. For example, extensive studies have been carried out all
over the world on flexible pavement management systems, whereas enough work
has not yet been done on the management systems for gravel roads, earth roads,
shoulders, road side drains, road markings and other utilities.

One of the major steps for the development of a management system is to

generate a comprehensive inventory of existing infrastructures, conditions and data
collection and evaluation of assets. The success of the system will depend on
effective data collection and analysis strategies. A comprehensive database can
provide crucial historical information which includes year and cost of construction,
materials used and other details including information on the asset’s design,
construction, repair and reconstruction. It might be difficult to gather historical
information in the absence of well documented records. Therefore, in lieu of a highly
sophisticated data-intensive management system, it may be more effective to utilize
a simple system which can make use of the scant data which is available. The
Geographical Information System (GIS) has been effectively used in various aspects
of asset management, and can be used for the development of a spatial database
and for the provision of a complete inventory of existing infrastructure. Spatial data
would be collected from secondary sources and from surveys. This data would then
be stored in the GIS database. The GIS provides the necessary programmes and
tools for handling spatial data. Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh, in India have
already prepared detailed road inventories using the GIS platform. Since the road
system of India has a large number of links and nodes, care should be taken to
develop a standard method of labelling and numbering. In this way, even a small
stretch of a minor road can be identified easily. The information regarding different
elements of the assets should be entered in separate layers in GIS. This will allow
each element to be studied independently, or compared and contrasted with other
elements by integrating them using CIS. .Facilities should also be encouraged to
record data using popular software applications such as Microsoft Excel and
Microsoft Access database, after they are made compatible with GIS software. A

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simple flow diagram has been developed connecting the GIS data-base, model-base
and the user-friendly interface as shown in Fig.3. The software should be developed
in such a way that it would be easy for users to input the required data, understand
the displayed output, and generate reports whenever required.

Since any road management system involves a variety of assets and a large
amount of data, a platform should be developed, or chosen from an existing set of
platforms, for clustering the components based on a few chosen factors. This will
make the analysis simpler as a set of components would be represented by one
factor. Different parameters would be used for clustering different assets or their
components.

A rural roads management system should have; (a) relevant data to predict
road performance, (b) access to estimated and actual costs of various assets, (c) the
authority to make decisions regarding management and maintenance activities, and
(d) a voice in projecting future budgets. Thus, it is necessary to develop a
management system for each asset separately using the concept of life-cycle
assessment. This would necessitate the development of performance models for
each element. Theoretical scenarios would be generated to plan for the management
of the assets on a long-term basis. The most challenging task would be to integrate
all these individual management systems into a single management system when
needed, in order to examine all the elements of the system. Currently, a number of
methods, such as multi-criteria decision analysis, are being successfully used for
decision making in such situations and should be used for the management system.
The condition of cracks and potholes may be difficult to quantify accurately in the
field and may be rated subjectively. Similarly, while making decisions, the importance
or weight of various parameters may not be represented in absolute terms. As a
result, some subjectivity is likely to be present. Thus, to make the management
system realistic and effective, fuzzy multi-criteria analysis may be a more appropriate
tool. While such techniques are currently quite common, their success and
effectiveness depend primarily on how accurately input data has been collected.
While developing the tools, there must be scope for continuous refinement and for
the inclusion of the elements of the asset which were not included in the beginning.

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Transport and Communications Bulletin for Asia and the Pacific No. 81, 2011

Figure 2. Out-line for the Development of Asset Management System

Rural Road Maintenance

(RRMMS)

Class of roads

Location Data Traffic Data Road Condition

Survey Data

Data Storage and Clustering

Performance Model Policy and Standards

Management System for Road Class Select another

Class of road

Integration of all the Classes of road

Prioritization of Programmes Budget

Cross cutting all classes of road

Implementation of Programmes

Monitoring and Evaluation

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Figure 3. Interface between data base and output

III. TYPE OF MAINTENANCE OF RURAL ROADS

Rural roads may also be classified based on their surface composition, such
as black-top, concrete, gravel and earth. Decisions will have to be made regarding
whether these different types of roads should be put under the same management
system. It may be appropriate to consider them separately and to develop separate
maintenance management systems for them. Funds may be allocated separately for
each one of them depending on length and requirements. This article has
concentrated on black-top roads, the maintenance of which may be classified into
categories such as routine, recurrent, periodic and emergency (World Bank, 1988;
Lebo and Schelling, 2001; CNB, 2002). Routine maintenance involves small scale
work carried out regularly with an objective to ensure passibility and safety of the
existing roads in the short run and to prevent premature deterioration (Transport
Research Laboratory, 1994). Typical activities in routine maintenance include
drainage cleaning, carriageway repair, cleaning of silted ditches, grass cutting,
pothole repair and bridge and culvert maintenance. The frequency of routine
maintenance normally ranges between a week and a month.

Recurrent maintenance is required at intervals during the year depending on

the topographic and climatic characteristics of the area as well as traffic volume. It
mainly involves the maintenance of pavement, the filling of potholes and grading for
unpaved roads.

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Periodic maintenance covers activities on the road at regular but relatively

long intervals. The aim is to maintain the structural integrity of the road (Burningham
and Stankevich, 2005). Since these operations usually are large scale, requiring
specialized equipment and skilled personnel, they require a proper system for
identification, priorization, planning and design.

Emergency repair is needed when roads are damaged due to disasters such
as floods and earthquakes. Such repairs sometimes require special measures and
skills as the damage needs to be repaired quickly in order to maintain supply in the
affected area.

IV. STATUS OF RURAL ROADS MAINTENANCE IN INDIA

Maintenance of rural roads has never been a priority with most of the states in
India, due primarily to a lack of adequate funds and the absence of maintenance
management systems. A situational analysis conducted in Madhya Pradesh has
concluded that very little road maintenance was possible due to lack of three
elements – (a) proper funds, (b) proper policy and (c) a strong institutional
framework. While the need for adequate funds was not in doubt, more critical
institutional issues such as maintenance planning, maintenance management, the
effective delivery of maintenance work and accountability of expenditure in
maintenance needed attention (ILO, 2005). The situation is similar is nearly all the
other states.

The Central Road Fund (CRF) established in 1930, and revitalized under the
Central Road Fund Act of 2000, is targeted primarily towards the development and
maintenance of National and State Highway networks and the construction of new
rural roads. There have been efforts to create a State Road Fund (SRF) by states
such as Assam, Kerala, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, with most of the
remaining states moving towards the setting up of such funds. The SRFs are
financed by multiple resources such as budgetary support from the central
government, direct road user charges for access to fuel, motor vehicle taxes, fees
and tolls, indirect road user charges and levies on agricultural products. Similar to
the CRF, these road funds are normally used for both development and maintenance
of road networks. However, considering the poor connectivity in rural areas,
emphasis is usually given to road development and maintenance is neglected. Uttar
Pradesh is the first state in India that has dedicated funds for road maintenance. It
was established in 1998 and clearly specifies the source, collection, mechanism and
management of the maintenance funds (Chandrasekhar and others, 2006).

Rajasthan has taken the lead in developing a system for the maintenance of
rural roads. Total funds required for the period of 2005-10 was estimated and yearly
budgetary allocations were provided from the SRF, non-plan heads of the state
government and loans from the National Bank for Agricultural and Rural
Development. The Public Works Department has also been developing a road
maintenance management system and accordingly a package called the Road
Maintenance, Planning, Budgeting and Programming System (ROMAPS) that has
been installed in all the thirty three districts of the state. Necessary base data has
been collected and a process developed to collect road distress data periodically.
However, it will take some more time to become effectively functional.

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V. INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS FOR RURAL ROAD MAINTENANCE

Until now, various state governments have primarily given emphasis to the
construction of rural roads under the PMGSY programme. It may be mentioned here
that the programme developed is an in-built maintenance plan for five years, as the
respective contractors were responsible for the upkeep of the road during that period.
However, roads constructed during the initial phases have been completed for five
years. There is now an urgent need to have a maintenance system in place so that
these roads can serve the population satisfactorily until the end of their design life
and so that funds are available for the rehabilitation or reconstruction of these roads
in a timely manner. It is expected that the Panchayati Raj Institutions would maintain
these roads.

There are different implementation arrangements developed in different

countries for executing rural road maintenance. The effective execution of any of
these arrangements requires an efficient management organization. There are a few
possible solutions to finding an institutional framework for the provision and
maintenance of rural roads:

National authority which delegates responsibility to states, districts and

panchayats

The strength of this arrangement is that scarce resources for the maintenance
of rural roads are consolidated into one organization. With limited budget and
logistical support, this arrangement will succeed if local offices are set up at strategic
locations along the network. This set up may be difficult to implement in a vast
country like India. However, the same structure may be adopted at the state level
with the responsibilities delegated to districts and panchayats.

Decentralized to local government authorities with technical unit in the local

government administration

In such an arrangement a road works section would be established in each

panchayat samithi or a panchayat. This would require the development of
tremendous amounts of capacity building exercises. When works are managed at the
local level, pressure from the local public holds authorities accountable and forces
them to deliver.

Communities responsible for rural roads maintenance

Attempts have been made in this regard, mainly on a project basis, with
mixed results. It would be possible to utilize workers in the community to perform
preliminary level maintenance work. However, for slightly specialized work, there
would be the need for a technically competent agency.

Suggested structure

Over the years, the planning, construction and maintenance of rural roads
has been the responsibility of local governments. The PMGSY is the first centrally
funded rural road development project being executed by state governments. This
was a special scheme launched to provide accessibility to remote villages. However,
the understanding was that the state governments would take up the maintenance of
these roads. There are two problems in such an arrangement. The most important
point is that the state governments do not have sufficient funds to maintain the

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existing rural roads and the new roads will add extra burden on them. Secondly, the
lack of man-power at the local government level makes the physical maintenance
problematic. Thus before assigning the responsibility of maintaining the roads to the
local or state governments, it is necessary to determine their fund generation
capacity as well as the availability of man-power and expertise.

To make the process realistic, Merrilees and Huong, 2003 have suggested
that routine and periodic maintenance may each be divided into two levels.
Accordingly, Routine I is mostly labour-based, while Routine II requires a plant,
materials and skills. Similarly, Periodic I is mainly concerned with spot improvement,
where Periodic II involves full re-gravelling, re-sealing and major repairs. In this
process, it may be possible at the local level to perform Routine I or even Routine II
maintenance. However, periodic or emergency maintenance maybe need to be
managed and funded from higher levels.

Such arrangements would require understanding between governmental

departments at various levels, with the responsibilities of each clearly specified. A
maintenance management system would be required in order to prioritize those
stretches of roads involving all stakeholders.

A structure for rural road maintenance is being suggested (Table-1) in which

Routine I maintenance, which is primarily labour-based and does not require any
equipment or skill, has been assigned at the village level. The Panchayat would be
responsible for Routine II maintenance. Similarly, Periodic I has been assigned to
Panchayat Samity while Periodic II has been assigned to Ziila Parishad. Emergency
maintenance may be taken up by Zila Parishad or the State Government, depending
on the severity of damage and the funds required. Presently, the local level
governments might not have the expertise or man-power to take on this work.
However, assigning responsibility does not necessarily mean that the work must be
completed by conventional means. Local level governments should investigate
creative and innovative methods for accomplishing the work. Periodic and
emergency maintenance require specialized equipment and skilled personnel.
Therefore, Panchayat Samity and Zila Parishad may have to work closely with the
Public Works Department. This arrangement is only a suggestion and may be
finalized by the state authority based on discussions with the different levels of the
Government and depending on the available competencies at each level.

Table 1. Proposed Maintenance Responsibilities of Rural Roads1

Maintenance type Responsibility

Routine I Village
Routine II Panchayat
Periodic I Panchayat Samity
Periodic II Zila Parishad
Emergency Zila Parishad/ State
Government

1
In India the local grass-root level government system in known as Panchayati Raj system. The
Panchayats are the basic units of administration and consists of a few villages. The Panchayat Samiti is
local government body at the block level (consisting of a few panchayats) and at the district level it is
called Zilla Parishad, All these local bodies are run by directly elected representatives at the respective
levels with election being held every five years.

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VI. METHODS OF ENGAGING THE COMMUNITY IN RURAL ROADS

MAINTENANCE

While the responsibility of maintenance may be assigned to different levels of

the Government, they may use innovative methods to perform their duties. However,
it is always useful to involve community in the maintenance process, as they
understand the need for well-maintained roads. Different methods have been used in
a number of countries to cultivate this interest. For routine types of maintenance, the
length man system, where small and manageable tasks are allocated to individual
workers, has been tried successfully in a number of African countries. In this system,
a labourer is hired for each section of road between one and two kilometres in length.
A supervisor provides the worker with tools, while at the same time monitors the
condition of roads, directs operations, makes reports and authorizes payment for
satisfactory work. The lengthman system is desirable because continuous
maintenance of the entire road may be guaranteed at all times. The system has been
successfully used in a few African countries. A similar system has been adopted
successfully in Bangladesh, where the work has been assigned to destitute women
from the locality for a period of three years. A portion of each worker’s daily wage is
deposited into a bank account, and at the end of the three-year term the women are
given their accumulated wages. This not only helps maintain the roads, it also serves
society since these women usually start small businesses with the money they
receive at the end of their term of work. Experiences from many parts of the world
show that small private enterprises can produce quality maintenance work at lower
cost than traditional direct labour forces employed by the state (ADB, 2005). In Peru,
the routine maintenance of rural road networks is carried out by micro-enterprises
(Ipingbemi, 2008). They are created, trained and contracted by the autonomous
Rural Road Programme of Peru with the objective of guaranteeing year-round
sustainability of the rural road network. The workers are selected from communities
close to the stretch of the road concerned. They are responsible for routine
maintenance such as the filling of potholes, the clearing of drains, culverts and other
elements of the drainage system using basic hand tools. Major concerns when
considering length man or other community contracting arrangements are; (a) the
legal status of the individual workers and/or the communities, and (b) to what extent
these workers can be held responsible when things go wrong. Integration of poverty-
reduction objectives with rural roads maintenance will lead to a demand-driven
participatory approach. When utilizing local workers in road repairs, scheduling of the
work needs to be done with consideration for the rural labour cycle by scheduling
work during periods when the poor labourers are not involved in agricultural or other
activities. This will ensure that community participation is genuinely pro-poor and
inclusive and will contribute to the sustainability of investment (ADB, 2005).

VII. ENSURING SUSTAINABILITY IN RURAL ROADS MAINTENANCE

When developing a sustainable system of road maintenance, it is necessary

to approach the system from two different angles. The first is to develop guidelines,
manuals, standards and policies that clear and well defined. This would ensure
uniformity and eliminate confusion on the part of field engineers which would in turn
minimize the time needed for decision making. Efforts have been made by the
National Rural Roads Development Agency (NRRDA) and the Indian Roads
Congress (IRC) in the construction of rural roads, but there is need for similar efforts
towards the maintenance of roads. While sharing the experience of developing a
rural roads maintenance programme in Viet Nam, Merrilees and Huong, 2003
suggested attacking the problem from two directions simultaneously; (a) top down
support to the agencies towards improving guidelines, standards and policies, and

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(b) bottom up support in building the ability of agencies to manage rural road
networks.

Top-down support would require the following systems and procedures to be

put in place:

x Maintenance manuals would be developed by the IRC in collaboration with

the NRRDA and the Public Works Departments of various states.
Considering the topographic, climatic and other variations of a vast country
like India, special care would be taken to incorporate local issues into the
manual.
x Technical training including training of trainers would be organized for
disseminating the contents of the maintenance manual.
x A road asset management system for rural roads and a simple format for
data collection would be developed.
x A communication network linking state agencies and panchayats would be
created and implemented.
x Local level engineers would receive institutional support to design products
with advice and support from technical support teams.

Bottom-up support would require the following systems and procedures to be

put in place:

x A regional support system to deliver training, advice and capacity building to

local authorities would be created.
x A situational review would be conducted, summarizing existing rural road
networks, road management and maintenance policies.
x Maintenance workshops would be instituted for discussing existing
situations/problems and suggesting solutions.

The most important aspect of ensuring sustainability is to develop ownership

among the users of the rural roads. It is essential to involve the community in every
aspect of a new road, from planning and design, to construction and maintenance.
Efforts have been made in this direction in the case of the PMGSY roads with mixed
success. Unfortunately, this degree of community involvement is usually not
considered to be of value. However, if it was encouraged early on, perhaps less effort
would be required later to elicit support from the community regarding road
maintenance.

In India, it would be possible to implement the rural roads maintenance

system provided it be linked with various poverty alleviation programmes initiated by
the Government of India. A few years ago a massive poverty reduction scheme has
been launched known as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee
Scheme (MGNREGA) in which each household in the rural areas are being provided
100 days employment. The scheme has been extremely popular and thus is
expected to be continued for years to come. If properly planned, rural roads
maintenance may be made in-built in the scheme where the villagers will be trained
in various aspects of rural road maintenance and then will be asked to maintain
stretches of roads and they will be paid from the MGNERAGA programme. Proper
training of the villagers and monitoring of the quality of work are two vital components
to make the programme successful.

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Transport and Communications Bulletin for Asia and the Pacific No. 81, 2011

VIII. ISSUES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF A SUSTAINABLE

RURAL ROADS MAINTENANCE SYSTEM

The following issues need to be addressed for the successful implementation

of a rural road management system in India. There are many issues to be addressed
and only the major ones are being highlighted below:

Classification of rural roads and bringing all of them under the same
administration

In India, there are different kinds of rural roads and are being managed by
various agencies and funding comes separately for each category. They may also be
classified based on road surface. All the rural roads do not have the same function
and do not have the same importance. Thus there is a need to classify rural roads
depending on their functions and all kinds of rural roads need to be brought under
one agency.

Decentralization of responsibilities

Road maintenance is a local activity and poor roads affect the local people
the most. Thus it is reasonable to expect that decentralization of the responsibility for
implementing maintenance of rural roads should include the local government at the
lowest level. However, the responsibilities at each level must be clearly specified to
avoid any confusion during implementation. .

Details of asset features may not be readily available

Very often the essential features such as year of construction and the
subsequent maintenance, reconstruction or rehabilitation details of the rural roads
constructed long time back are not available with the concerned agencies. This
makes the development of a maintenance management system quite difficult. Thus a
framework is to be developed for rural roads maintenance that is simple and is based
on the available data.

Development of manuals for rural roads maintenance

Since the engineers in charge of rural roads are usually not exposed to a
systematic rural roads maintenance management system, simple manuals are to be
developed for the field engineers, contractors and the community for different levels
of maintenance work. In a diverse country like India it would help if they were made
available in various regional languages.

Development of trained manpower

The government agencies responsible for the construction and maintenance

of rural roads mostly do not have sufficient number of trained manpower and thus the
existing engineers need to work in different sectors at the same time. Thus it
becomes difficult for them to concentrate fully on one sector. Ideally separate units
should be created for maintenance work only. However, at least dedicated units
should be created for construction and maintenance of rural roads. They will be
trained in construction and maintenance aspects of rural roads time to time. It has
also been reported that the field engineers working in various departments at the
state level transferred very frequently which affects the continuity of work. Thus it

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must be ensured that the engineers are not transferred frequently so that their
expertise gained through training programmes is gainfully utilized.

Development of small contractors at community level

Keeping in view the fact that there is shortage of skilled personnel at local
government level, there will be need to involve the community in maintenance work.
This will require the development of small contractors at local level. Since they are
going to be the direct beneficiary of the roads, it is expected that their involvement
and commitment will be of the highest order. In addition, the local community will be
free to express their dissatisfaction if any to them freely and the contractors will be
under pressure to perform at a desirable level.

Funding constraints and need for long-term budget strategy

Traditionally, the government agencies are not used to prepare budgetary

requirements based on life-cycle cost, which takes care of maintenance and
reconstruction of the asset on a long term basis. This requires a long-term budgetary
strategy and keeping in view the usual funding constraints in the developing
countries, proper plan must be prepared to educate the decision makers to make
them aware about the importance of developing a maintenance management system
for rural roads.

Involving the community

Any effort without the involvement of the community will be almost impossible
to sustain and thus ensuring their involvement is going to be a big challenge. This will
be particularly true for roads constructed earlier when no efforts were made to
involve the community in the planning, design and construction stage. Suddenly
asking for their participation at maintenance stage might not be acceptable to the
villagers. Thus, special approaches must be developed of participatory planning so
that the community willingly come forward for getting involved in the process of rural
roads planning.

Schemes to include social development aspects

Sustainability will certainly be easier to achieve if direct and visible social

benefit aspects may be included in the implementation of rural road maintenance by
involving the poor people living below the poverty line. The government of India has
many poverty alleviation programmes and they need to be oriented in such a way
that rural roads construction and maintenance become a part of the project.

CONCLUSION

Maintenance of rural roads has been highly neglected over the years in India.
However, with the huge programmes that have been undertaken in the recent years
through PMGSY and Bharat Nirman programmes, it is but natural that maintenance
of these assets be taken seriously, otherwise the country will lose huge amount of
money in the end. The initiative has already been taken by the National Rural Roads
Development Agency (NRRDA) in this regard. However, it will take some time to
come up with a proper management programme as many issues are involved in
terms of funding, division of responsibilities among various departments and levels of
the government, training of personnel and development of manuals. There is need to
learn from the experiences of other developing countries and efforts need to be made

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to involve social development aspect in the maintenance of rural roads. In addition,

the involvement of the community is to be ensured to make the rural roads
maintenance sustainable.

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