Chizokho Vero
Kohima | May 31
Chief Minister of Nagaland Neiphiu Rio today said ‘road is the face of the nation and the State’ and that it reflects the level of development and standard of living. In this regard, he called for construction of ‘better quality and longer-lasting roads.’
“With higher priority being given to more commercially viable projects, the less commercially viable, but equally important requirements of small states like ours often get ignored,” Rio told the inaugural function of the 197th mid-term council meeting of Indian Roads Congress here at NBCC convention Hall.
According to the Chief Minister, roads also give the first impression and image about the government and its people. While India has made impressive achievements in terms of economic growth during the past two decades, infrastructure deficit remains a concern and constraint for faster growth in the north east region, Rio said.
The road sector has received special focus through various policy initiatives of the Government of India, such as the National Highway Development project, the Special Accelerated Road Development projects in the north east and the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. He said quality and coverage of road networks have improved in recent years. However, there are still big regional variations in road infrastructure, the Chief Minister said.
In the connectivity sector, Rio said Nagaland being a hilly and land-locked state like most of the other states in the north east region, does not have too many options. Development of railways and airways is very difficult, and also too expensive. Waterways are not available. Road infrastructure is, therefore, the sole means of transport within the state, he said.
“From a mere 895 km of roads at the time of the inauguration, today, the state has a total length of more than 11, 000 km of roads. However the percentage of surfaced roads as compared is still the lowest amongst the north east states,” Rio said.
Referring to financing, the Chief Minister said the State has limited resources and ‘we are largely dependent on the central government.’ “With the possibility of commercially viable projects ruled out Public Private Partnership are also ruled out.” Despite the higher costs involved in the state, we are expected to work within the specifications and financial norms applicable to mainland India. Inadequate funding for maintenance means that were are not able to tackle the problems of faster wear and tear, caused by difficult terrain and heavy rainfall.
The life of a newly constructed road, therefore, is much shorter. We need to work out state specific norms, and financing mechanism to maintain roads for a longer period,” Rio said.
He also expressed surprise that despite India being one of the main producers of highly qualified, technical manpower, we have not yet found a reliable technology to deal with this special road construction problem in the North East. On the other hand, he expressed happiness to Indian Roads Congress for placing special session on hill roads and landslides during its council meeting” and hoped that it would soon be able to address these problems.
“While addressing these issues, we have also to be mindful of the need to address emerging challenges in the form of designing and building roads with smaller carbon prints, and also remembering that north east is located in Himalayan Seismic zone 5.
Rio also stressed on the need of smaller states like Nagaland to build its own capacity in construction industry, not only for building quality roads in the state and to maintain them but also to take on larger construction projects beyond the state.
The Chief Minister also stressed on the need to create a collaborative or joint venture arrangement, whereby, the large construction companies from outside the state, and the smaller contractors from the state are able to work together and complement each other to ensure better performance, on time delivery of works and quality construction.
Inspite of great advances in technology, quality control has not been given due importance in the country, Rio regretted adding “As a result, the whole country is suffering due to inferior or sub standard works and products. In Nagaland, he said roads are constructed without proper supervision and guidance and also without taking into account the peculiar nature of the soil and topography etc. “Hence, very often, we end up in creating liabilities instead of creating real assets.
Rio said that the state government has created “Quality Control Board” to oversee all important works and ensure that quality specification is adhered to.
Rio was hopeful that the discussions and deliberations during the council meeting of Indian Roads Congress will bring a lot of positive changes, especially in the infrastructure scenario of NE region and that they will be able to set in motion the necessary research, identification and development of appropriate technologies for the region, including capacity building mechanisms to ensure better quality and longer lasting roads are constructed in this part of the country also.
The Chief Minister also stated that the Government of India has declared the Look East policy for achieving greater economic integration with the East Asian economies. The north east is seen as an important link and component of the Look East Policy. Nagaland has also taken up projects for opening of trade centres at Longwa, Pangsha, Avangkhu on the Myanmar border.
Construction and opening of major roads including the Stilwell road, is a challenge, which the Indian Roads Congress may address during this meeting. It also needs to be realized that the gateway to the ASEAN region is through the north east. Unless we give a special emphasis on road, Rio said that Look East Policy is not going to see the light of the day.
The north eastern states are landlocked, and road transport is the lifeline of the people. It goes without saying that Government of India must understand the need to make greater investments in the road sector in the north east, not only for faster economic growth in the region, but also to meet the strategies defence needs.
At present, Nagaland has only a few hundred meters of fly- over roads and not even a kilometre of four lane highway. He said that approach and policies of the Government of India needs a drastic change, if the people of the region too are to benefit from the changing dynamics of India’s economic growth.
It has been nine year since the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee during his visit to Kohima in 2003 declared that the stretch National Highway between Dimapur and Kohima would be made into four lane highway. Unfortunately, till today not a single rock was moved in that direction. He said paper work is still not finished.
Later, Rio released a souvenir and also inaugurated exhibition stalls. Indian Roads Congress President P.N. Jain stated that Nagaland has only 895 km of roads when it got statehood in 1963 and today it is about 12, 2000 km and growing where half of total length is surfaced. It seems great improvement; he however said that we must look at this as a challenge rather than an achievement.
He said people still need to travel upto 100 km to reach NH and 50km to state highways. Thus there is a big scope for reduction in grid. Referring to road development plan; vision 2021, Jain said steps required to satisfy needs of the road, safety, energy conservation and protection of environment have also been covered in this vision document.
“We need to take stock of achievement and identify major thrust areas to pursue in next 10 years,” he said adding that the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways need to take lead so that we have balanced growth of all categories of roads and in all regions of our country.
Vision documents estimates national road asset at Rs. 5,00,000 crore as on 2001. This must have increased much more as very large road development programmes have been undertaken, he said.
He however said that maintenance of these assets have not received due attention. Reforms on how we maintain our assets are needed. Further, he stated that long and short term performance based maintenance contracts and specialized maintenance contractors are the need of the hour.
Commissioner & Secretary, Government of Nagaland Temjen Toy in his welcome address said that it was a historic occasion to host the event and extended warm welcome to the delegates on behalf of the Government of Nagaland. Toy noted that IRC has grown from a small registered body in 1934 to a body that plays a vital role concerning policies in the road sector. Underlining the importance of road as undisputed fact, Temjen Toy said that roads continue to be favoured over other means of transport and would continue to be an important aspect of human development. Referring to the occurrences of frequent landslides of the NE region not only due to its hilly terrain but because of the nature of being on one of the youngest mountain fold, Temjen Toy expressed optimism that IRC would look into such peculiar problems taking into account the unique local patterns and help address the practical issues faced by the region.
In the programme, Secretary General IRC, A.K. Sharma read out the messages, while President IRC, P.N. Jain delivered the presidential address. Earlier the Chief Minister of Nagaland lighted the lamp which was followed by IRC Geet. Rio also released the IRC Souvenir and inaugurated the exhibition stalls while Minister for Road and Bridges and NH, Nagaland G. Kaito Aye released the IRC documents. Vice President, IRC, Pratap S. Raizada proposed the vote of thanks.
(With input from DIPR)
