essay on development of roads 300 to 450 words
Answers
construction and maintenance of roads can generate huge employment opportunities as it is twice as labour intensive as agriculture or housing. Indian roads carry 85 per cent of the passengers and 70 per cent of the freight traffic of the country. The highways, make up only 2 per cent of the road network by length, but carry 40 per cent of this traffic.
Answer:
India has one of the largest road networks in the world, aggregating to about 4.42 million kilometres at present. Roads have been existing in India for the last 5000 years and are the indigenous means of communication. The roads construction and development were the priority of Sultanate and Mughal period. One of the major roads constructed during Sher Shah Suri was from Peshawar to Kolkata.
It was named as Grand Trunk (GT) Road and joined Amritsar with Kolkata after partition. Presently it is known as Sher Shah Suri Marg. The roads are of two types according to their strength and make up: surfaced and unsurfaced. The best roads are the surfaced roads also called the metalled roads. India has one of the largest road networks in |the world.
The country’s road network consists of National Highways, State Highways, Major/other district roads and village/rural roads. Of these, National and state Highways which are around 2,24,556 km in length, occupy a pre-eminent position as nearly 60 per cent of the freight and 87 per cent of passenger traffic move on them. More than half of the metalled roads are in the Peninsular India where the old hard rock’s facilitate the building of such roads.
Maharashtra in this region is the leading State in road length. Here the roads measure 2,71,684 km. Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu rank after Maharashtra with, 148303 km and 140414 kms roads respectively.
For administrative purposes Indian roads are categorised as (i) National Highways, (ii) State Highways (iii) District Roads, (iv) Village Roads (v) Border Roads Organisation (BRO), and (vi) International Highways.
(i) National Highway:
The Central government is responsible for the construction and maintenance of the national highway system totalling a lenght of 70,934 km. Government is carrying out development and maintenance work of National Highway through three agencies viz. National Highway Authority of India PWD.
(ii) State Highways :-
Since the State Highways and District and rural Roads are under the responsibility of State Governments, these are developed and maintained by various agencies in States and Union Territories.
Roads are also being developed in rural areas under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). The objective of the PMGSY is to link all villages with a population of more than 500 with all- weather roads by the year 2007. The States are also assisted through financial assistance from the Central Road fund for development of selected roads which are of Inter-State and economic importance.
(iii) District Roads:
They form the link between headquarters of neighbouring districts and connect areas of production and market with either a highway or a railway within the boundaries of the district. Their total length is above six lakh km.
(iv) Village Roads:
The village roads connect the village with the neighbouring towns and cities. They are constructed and maintained under the supervision of Panchayats on the behalf of State government. They are developed under the minimum needs programme.
(v) Border Roads Organisations (BRO):Border Roads Organisation is a road construction executive force partly integral to and in support of the Army. It started operation in May 1960 with just two projects -Project Tusker (Nartak) in the east and Project Beacon in the West. It is now grown into a 13-project executive force, supported by a well-organised recruiting/training centre and two well-equipped base workshops for overhaul of plant/equipment and two Engineer Store Depots for inventory Management.
The BRO has not only linked the border areas of the north and north-east with the rest of the country, but has also developed the road infrastructure in Bihar, Maharashra, Karnatka, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, the Andaman &Nicobar Islands, Uttranchal and Chattisgarh.