Annual plan to be prepared for maintenance of rural roads
| Date :02-Sep-2019 |
By Kartik Lokhande ;
For the first time, Rural Development Department of Maharashtra has come up with Maharashtra Rural Roads Maintenance Policy for ‘adequate, timely, and sound maintenance’ of rural roads to provide ‘safe, convenient, and efficient access’ to users of rural roads. The policy guidelines have been sent to all the Divisional Commissioners, District Collectors, and Chief Executive Officers of Zilla Parishads in the State. The policy provides a guiding framework for making arrangements and establishing sets of procedures for maintenance and repairs of rural roads by Rural Development Department. Framing such a policy was under consideration of the State Government for quite some time. On July 30, State Cabinet approved the policy.
On August 27, the guidelines have been circulated to all the officers concerned. The policy is important considering the fact that there has been multiplicity of organisations dealing with rural roads in the State. Now, the policy makes it clear that Maharashtra Rural Roads Development Association (MRRDA) will act as an ‘apex institution’ for State rural roads. ZP and MRRDA will implement the said policy. As per the policy, now, annual rural roads maintenance plan will have to be prepared for roads maintained by Rural Development Department through ZP and MRRDA. Under the annual rural roads maintenance plan, need has been underlined for preparation of a comprehensive road database to carry out maintenace work in a planned and efficient manner.
The database will comprise road inventory details, road section inventory, pavement condition index report for every rural road. Rural Development Department has been asked to develop a computer-based Rural Roads Maintenance Management System too. The policy pitches for conducting at least one condition survey on each stretch of road every two years. Besides, traffic data for each road will be collected with classification of motorised, non-motorised, commercial vehicles etc. The traffic volume data will be used as an input in prioritisation of maintenance works. Once prioritisation is done, selection of roads will be done as per the availability of funds.
Rural Development Department will allocate the maintenance fund to MRRDA and ZP as per the time to time State priority and availability of financial resources for road length under maintenance. Apart from this, Rural Development Department will conduct a road user survey every three years to assess level of satisfaction of the road-users. The policy makes routine maintenance activities of all rural roads necessary ‘every year’. The routine maintenance activities include clearing of road-side gutters, filling of potholes, filling up of edges of asphalt surface, dressing of berms (ledges or spaces between ditch and parapet in a fortification), white-washing of guard-stones, fixing of caution board/village name board/speed limit board etc, re-fixing displaced guard-stones, picking of loose metal and topping of water bound macadum operation, maintenance of catch water drains, clearing of wild seasonal growth on berms, earthwork in berms and desilting of drains etc.
The policy finalises a schedule for certain activities relating to maintenance of rural roads. As per the schedule, survey of roads and preparation of priority list will have to be done in March/April every year. In May, approval should be granted to annual rural road maintenance plan. Administrative approval and technical sanction, approval to list of works should be granted in June/July. In August, tender procedure has to be completed. The works will be executed between September and March, that is, post-monsoon. As far as funds are concerned, those for periodical repairs, routine maintenance, and emergency works will come from non-plan head. Funds for upgradation of roads will come from respective District Planning Committee. It may be mentioned here that the rural roads have been classified into two categories -- Other District Road and Village Road.
These are further sub-divided into three sub-categories namely Bituminous Surface, Water Bound Macadum Surface, and Earthen Surface. Rural roads ‘replacement value’ pegged at Rs 48,403 crore Probably for the first time, an estimation of ‘replacement value’ of rural road network under the jurisdiction of Rural Development Department has been done. The policy document running into several pages mentions about this ‘replacement value’, which has been made treating rural roads as a ‘huge asset base’ and considering that any ‘inadequacy in maintenance, funding, and implementation on ground’ results in erosion of this asset base.
As per the estimate, the total rural road length in Maharashtra is 2,03,994 kms. Considering the current approximate cost of construction of road, the ‘replacement value’ of 2,03,994 kms of rural road length in Maharashtra has been pegged at a whopping Rs 48,403 crore! Of this value, the highest -- Rs 21,607 crore -- is associated with bituminous surface type of Village Roads, followed by Rs 19,136 crore in case of bituminous surface type of Other District Roads. Policy calls for time-bound removal of maintenance backlog Maharashtra Rural Road Maintenance Policy calls for formulation of an Action Plan for ‘time-bound’ removal of maintenance backlog of rural roads network. As per the Road Development Plan for the period 2001-21, total 2,36,890 kms of rural roads were targeted to be completed. As per the available data, Maharashtra could achieve only 2,03,994 kms till March 2015. Thus, the ‘missing length’ is 32,896 kms. Besides, there is backog in maintenance of rural roads. The policy calls for removal of such backlog.