DEVELOPMENT OF ROADS –

In the words of economist Jeremy Bentham , “Roads are the veins and arteries of a country
through which every improved channels circulate.” Regarding the significance of roads
Srivastava remarked- “The road is one of the great fundamental institutions of manking . Its
history dates back to the dawn of recorded history and beyond.”

At the beginning of the British period , a number of Mughal roads , connecting important
military and business centers were metal led and some new roads were constructed by Military
boards during the time of Lord William Bentick. But the administration of roads under military
boards was not a satisfactory arrangement. It was only during the administration of Lord
Dalhousie that the central public works department was established to look after the
construction and maintainence of roads. Later, such departments were created in other
provinces also. Lord Mayo and Lord Ripon contributed a lot in the development of roads
because the affairs of construction of maintainence of roads came directly under the control of
Local bodies.

There were three types of roads during the colonial India-

i.Salt Roads ii.Cotton Roads iii. Military Roads. Other than these roads there were other roads
like Village/District Roads, Trunk Roads and Imperial Roads.

Anstey Vera , author of ‘The Economic Development Of India’, stated, “Despite Lord Bentick’s
attempted improvement in the road system of the North , no far reaching scheme was
carried out until the time of Lord Dalhousie”. S.S Thorburn remarked, “ Lord Dalhousie was
essentially the great road maker of India”. East India Company cared little for roads. G.T road
from Calcutta to Delhi was rough and unsatisfactory until 1849. Lord Dalhousie’s greatest
achievement was his completion of Asia’s greatest highway to an and beyond Delhi and the
planning , cutting and opening of some of the stations of its extension to Peshawar. Lord
Dalhousie indeed took considerable steps to develop roads in India. H.K Trasvaskis observed
that Dalhousie was more lavish in his expenditure on public works than any of his
predecessors.

Roads in pre-colonial India were not fit for modern transport and acted as a major hurdle for
colonial administration. As a countermeasure , various British officials called for the
development of roads. The roads which were built facilitated mobilization of the British Army
and eased out the movement of raw materials from the countryside to the nearest railway
station to ultimately a port on their way towards Britain. However, the Britishers did not want
to spend money for the development in a colony. Thus, a shortage of funds always prevailed.
With the development of Railways in India, the road development received a serious setback.
The work of road maintainence and development was given a secondary importance and thus
the roads gradually lost the interest of the government . The central government took the
following steps towards the development of roads-

In 1928, the Jayakar Committee recommended that since the provincial governments and the
local bodies were unable to look after all the roads and therefore, the central government
should look after all the important roads of national importance. On recommendation of the
Committee , the central road fund was enforced on 1st March, 1929. The petrol tax surcharge at
the rate of two annas per gallon (2.64 per litres) of the petrol consumed by motor traffic was
imposed to build the road development fund. Out of the annual revenue, thus collected, 20
percent was to be retained by the central government for meeting expenses on the the
administration purpose and development of roads under its charge. Also in the year 1934, a
semi official technical body known as Indian Roads Congress (IRC) was established by the
central government . This body was formed of national importance for controlling
standardization,specification and recommendations regarding design and construction of roads
and bridges. In the same year , a conference of the chief engineers of Cental and state
Government was convened by the central government at Nagpur. It is the landmark in Indian
history of the road development programme in a planned manner. The session finalized a
twenty year road development plan (1943-1963) popularly known as the Nagpur Plan.
According to the plan , all roads were classified into four categories namely National Highways,
State Highways, District Roads and Village Roads. It was also recommended that the central
government should assume complete financial liability for construction and maintainence of
roads classified as National Highways and the construction of roads of national importance was
made the responsibility of the central government.

For the smooth movement of commodities , transportation link from village to the main cities
(Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Hyderabad and Bangalore). The roads played an important role in
interlinking the villages with the towns and cities and smooth transportation of goods for the
market.