write a description on Roadways in the 21st century
Answers
Roadways are enormously important to all countries. Without roadways, farmers can't get their produce to market, factories can't transport goods to retail outlets, and people can't get from one point to another without a lot of difficulty. Countries or regions without adequate roadways cannot function.
Explanation:
In India, the challenge is infrastructure. And in the infrastructure sector, roads have highest priority, the greatest need and the most usage. Road building activity cuts across sectors: it serves industry, it serves agriculture, it serves trade and it serves the people. The road building sector also is all-inclusive because it may start from Delhi and wind up in Orissa. So you are cutting across some of the most backward districts. So road building activity is an all inclusive developmental process, by its very nature.
National highways are 2% of the roads in India but carry 40% of the total traffic. And it’s the second largest in the world. So the challenge is enormous because of the gap between need and what is there. Just by an incrementality every year, it’s not going to happen. We’ve got to have a quantum jump.
That’s why I set a target of 20km a day, which means 10 times of what we are doing if we are to catch up from the past. Today, we have India of the 21st century and roads of the 20th century. This is one area which requires a lot of catching up to do.
From an economy point of view, the most natural economic stimulus is roads. It creates jobs, it creates demand, it creates efficiencies and it reduces costs of transportation if you’ve got an efficient network.
Is the 20km a day target achievable?
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We got to create our own structural strengths, management strengths. We got to look at land. Land is the biggest impediment. Everything which is being held up is because of land. So, without strengthening the land acquisition process, you can’t go from two to three also, you know. That’s very clear.
In a slowdown, when not enough private sector players are bidding, do you think there is a case for the government stepping in to help out?
Well, I don’t see finance as a problem. But there is a case for stepping in into anything and everything which does not work. So, if you invite bidders and nobody bids, there is nothing wrong with the bidders, there is something wrong with your document. It is very clear, what is wrong. And we need to correct that. Certain roads in India are tollable and certain roads are not tollable.
So your focus is on building the roads, as opposed to worrying about which way they get built.
See, once you decide that you want to build roads, then you’re deciding to build roads, whichever way and whatever the traffic (they) can bear. Inputs are necessary from everywhere. But in the end, we got to see what works and what is practical. See, this is the art of the desirable and where the art of the desirable doesn’t work, you got to have the art of the feasible.
Do you think the annuity model will help get bids for roads which are not tollable?
We’ve got to have three distinct models in the country. We must have BOT (build-operate-transfer) toll, that should be the first preference, because that is the best one. Number two, we should look at annuity, with