AN ANALYTICAL STUDY ON EFFECT OF REGIONAL VARIATION ON COST OF RURAL ROADS UNDER PMGSY

Abstract

Rural road connectivity is a key component of rural road development by promoting access to social and economic services and generating increased agricultural income and productive employment opportunities. In India rural roads have been planned and constructed under various rural development programmes. Even then all weather connectivity could not have been provided to more than 60 percent of the 6 lakh villages. With a view to connect the rural area government has launched the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) on 25th December 2000. It is a 100% centrally sponsored programme. The objective of the programe is provide all weather connectivity to a habitation having population more than 1000 persons by the end of 2003, and a habitation having population more than 500 persons by the end of 2007. India is a vast country with a diverse nature of terrain and climatic condition. All the physical and climatic characteristics of the construction site affect the design of the road and so it affects the overall cost of construction of the road. Factors influencing the design of roads are soil subgrade quality, climatic conditions, along with the traffic. In a study conducted it was observed that road construction at a place where the CBR of the soil subgrade is 2%, is 63% more costlier than that a place where the CBR is 10%. Similarly, it has been seen, that increase in rainfall increases the overall cost of road construction. In this thesis, an attempt has been made to pin point the local factors (such as soil subgrade quality, site clearance, construction of Retaining Wall, Cross Drainage, availability of material etc.), which affects the total cost of rural road construction. Along with this, an endeavour has also been put to divide the area of states in zones with different local factors, which has its highest effect in the locality. The results obtained from the present analytical study conveys that, requirement of Retaining Wall and CD structures along with the higher cost of site clearing are the major factors, which increases the cost of construction of road in hilly terrain by about 33% as compared to plain terrain. When we consider only the construction of rural road, it is almost same in plain and hilly terrain. Average total cost of construction of rural road is Rs 20.7, 19.2 and Rs 26.6 lakh in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal respectively. Total cost of construction of roads in Bihar is higher as compared to Uttar Pradesh due to the increased transportation cost. However the total cost of construction in Uttaranchal is highest.