The
explanation for the poor state of roads in Assam is not just corruption of PWD
officials. Corruption certainly exists and makes the state of the
roads worse than it ought to be. Yet, that does not explain the horrible
state of the roads fully.
The
premise that other states with better roads are significantly less corrupt
is, in my opinion and experience, quite false. I am not just talking of
Bihar like states here - anyone who has lived in states like Punjab or Haryana
or Delhi or Maharashtra will know that the intensity of
corruption, the political and money power of the big contractors - are at least
as high as in Assam. Its in fact linked to violent organized crime, bonded labor
and several other social ills. The cuts you pay to the engineer before a
"tender" is sanctioned is of a similar proportion - sometimes even higher as
periodic outbreaks of scandals show.
What
is different in my view is the political pressure exerted by business, industry
and the big farmers on the state to have decent roads to transport their goods.
Therefore, authorities - top bureaucrats, legislators and ministers - have
to balance the money they can make by eating up their roads with the money they
can make by direct and indirect contributions from the industrial lobbies and
the need to retain their patronage. This, in turn, makes them do two kinds of
things:
1.
Increase the public expenditure on roads
2
Prevent standards from falling below a basic minimum.
The better state of roads there reflect
this.
In
Assam, for many years now, the state government has barely been able to meet the
financial needs of paying salaries to its officials. I know that netters often
get very upset about central monies sanctioned for development not being used
by the state government. However, these monies are for very specific
projects - like major bridge, a national highway, border roads... MOSTLY, THEY
CANNOT BE SPENT ON GENERAL MAINTENANCE OF EXISTING PWD ROADS -
particularly, the ones you encounter in smaller towns and
villages.
We
also do not have a significant industrial lobby to bribe our ministers
sufficiently to prevent them from pilferaging the limited funds they
have.
I am
willing to debate this to the very end. But I do not have the facts on my hand
and I am not an engineer. I was hoping someone from Assam PWD would actually be
on the net ( at some point the former head of the department wrote a few
messages). Let me tell you what I know to be facts but can't substantiate right
now with numbers.
For
the roads funded, built and maintained by the state PWD, the expenditure per km
is quite a bit less than "the better roads" in other states.
The
national highways in Assam are built and maintained by the same state PWD - the
same kind of Assam engineers - that do other roads - the condition of these
national highways is very good, particularly in comparison to what I have seen
in other Eastern states such as West Bengal. The main reason is that they are
built to different technological specification and their per kilometer
expenditure (funded directly by the Central govt) is significantly
higher. That is also true for roads funded by the
North
Eastern Council, Indian Railways (approaches to rail-cum-road bridges)
etc.
The
Border Roads Task Force (a military civil engineering department of the central
government) has built several highways in the border regions - at one point,
they used to be of better quality than the national highways built by
state PWD & cited as instances of local incompetence - and then it was
discovered that their per kilometer expenditure was significantly higher
than what the central govt allowed the state PWD to spend.
Finally, the road network in and around the major
cities of Assam have seen tremendous increase in traffic - including freight
traffic. Just think about it dispassionately. Think of your small town. Have the
roads expanded significantly? Probably not. Do you think the real dollars spent
per kilometer on maintenance has gone up significantly - unlikely. How about the
number of trucks you see plying? The deterioration in quality of urban
& feeder roads is much more likely to be explained by that physical pressure
of traffic in a rainy weather state rather than increasing corruption.
I
could go on. But let me sum up here. I strongly disagree that the INENSITY
of corruption and leakage is much higher in Assam and that therein lies the
explanation for all ills. The quality of engineering knowledge as always
been high too. The difference in quality of roads is largely explicable by the
difference in expenditure per kilometer on construction of non-centrally funded
roads and more importantly, on their maintenance (which is what is reflected in
every day life) and the intertemporal deterioration in quality is largely
explained by difference in pressure of traffic in urban areas -
partly, a result of unplanned urban expansion and population growth.
Santanu.
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