India Roads, Railways, Ports & Airways

Road Transport [arr] 100 % FDI

National Highways

• Responsibility of National highway authority of India (NHAI)
• Constitutes 2 % of all roads & carry 40 % of total road traffic
• Funded by cess on petrol & high-speed diesel (From central road fund in public accounts of India)
• UP [arr] Highest length of National Highways

International Border Highways

• Connects Indian borders with neighbouring countries.
• Responsibility lies with Border Road organization (BRO)
• Financed by World Bank

Famous Highway Projects

• Golden Quadrilateral [arr] 6 lane highway project connecting Delhi – Mumbai – Kolkata – Chennai
• North – South Corridor [arr] Linking Srinagar – Kanyakumari
• East – West Corridor [arr] Linking Silchar (Assam) – Porbandar
• Mumbai – Pune expressway (1^st expressway of country) is not under NHAI as it was built by state government

State Highways

• Connects state capitals with district centres & are constructed by state governments
• Union from Central Road fund (CRF) provides grants & financial assistance to states, if required
• Maharashtra has the largest length of state highways

District Highways

• District centers to other important places of districts like business centers, industrial centers etc.
• Zila Parishad constructs & maintains these roads (Constitutes 1/3^rd of total Indian roads)
• Maharashtra has the largest length of District highways

Village Roads

• Connects villages with neighboring towns & cities
• Responsibility of village roads lies with Gram Panchayat
• Central gov. has launched Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) in 2000 as 100 % centrally sponsored scheme to provide rural connectivity to unconnected rural areas with population of 500 persons or more (250 persons in case of Hilly, Tribal & Desert areas)

Project Bharatmala

• A road built along India’s vast west-to east land border, approx. 5300km, from Gujarat to Mizoram
• Linking it to a road network in coastal states, from Maharashtra to Bengal
• This is a road network that will, as it were, garland the territory of India
• The Bharat Mala plan has a strong strategic component
• It’s India’s attempted answer to improve reach and connectivity in border areas, right across a large part of which lies China’s impressive road infrastructure

Rashtriya Rajmarg Zila Sanjoyokta Pariyojna – Roads will be developed to connect 100 district HQs across the country

Setubharatam – Govt to build 210 rails over bridges in the next two years and about 400-500 bridges would be built as standalone projects.

Indian Railways

• Mainly found in 3 gauges
• Broad Gauge = 1.675 m (70.72%)
• Meter Gauge = 1 m (92%)
• Narrow Gauge = .61 & .62 m (5.36%)

Metro Rails (Functioning) 

• Kolkata (First mass rapid transit system in India)
• Delhi
• Bangalore (Wifi Enabled)
• Mumbai (Public Private Partnership)
• Jaipur
• Chennai
• Gurgaon (India’s first fully privately financed metro + India’s first fully privately financed metro stations)

Duronto Express [arr] Fastest Train in India (Called Restless in Bengali)

Diamond Quadrilateral [arr] High speed rails project connecting Delhi – Mumbai – Kolkata – Chennai

Indian Ports

• Ennore – 1^st corporate port (To release pressure on Chennai port)
• Indian Ports – 95 % by volume & 70 % by value – India’s international trade
• In monsoon, all western ports except Mumbai, Cochin & Kandila are closed (12 Major & 1 Minor Port)

• Maritime transport is to be administered by both the Central and the State governments.
• While the central government’s shipping ministry administers the major ports, the minor and intermediate ports are administered by the relevant state gov. of coastal states.
• All major ports, except one Ennore Port are government administered. It is the first port in India which is a public company.

Major Inland Waterways by Inland waterways authority of India (IWAI)

• Central Government has jurisdiction over both the National Highways and the National Waterways
• The States’ Governments have NO jurisdiction over the National Waterways.
• Indian Waterways à 1 % of total transport
• Length wise [arr] 1 > 4 > 2 > 5 > 3
• Inland waterways – 14500 km
• Indian coastline – Approx. 7500 km

River Interlinking Program India

The National Water Development Agency has already identified 14 links under the Himalayan Component and 16 under the one for Peninsular Rivers with priority to top 5 projects viz.

• Ken-Betwa
• Parbati-Kalisindh -Chambal
• Damanganga-Pinjal
• Par-Tapi-Narmada
• Godavari (Polavaram)-Krishna (Vijayawada)

The Himalayan Interlinking Rivers – 14

The Peninsular Interlinking Rivers – 16

Objectives of River Interlinking Project

• To diminish water scarcity in western and peninsular India
• To help in irrigation and storage as a large part of Indian agriculture is rainfall dependent
• To mitigate droughts and floods
• To reduce diversity between the water surplus and water scarce parts of India
• Will create employment
• Will help in socio – economic development of people

Opposition of River Interlinking Project

• Huge capital requirement
• Project may take 50 years to complete
• Can cause seismic hazards in Himalaya
• Execution is difficult as 21/30 links are dependent on other links
• Displacement of tribal and poor
• Interstate water disputes (political)
• Loss of forest and biodiversity
• International Conflicts with Nepal, Bangladesh

Project Sagarmala

• Project Sagarmala aims to improve India’s maritime infrastructure by modernizing existing major and minor ports of India and setting up new ports
• Prime objectives of Project Sagarmala

• to promote port-led direct and indirect development
• to provide infrastructure to transport goods to and from ports quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively

• The Sagarmala initiative will address challenges by focusing on three pillars of development, namely

• Supporting and enabling Port-led Development through appropriate policy and institutional interventions and providing for an institutional framework for ensuring inter-agency and ministries/departments/states’ collaboration for integrated development
• Port Infrastructure Enhancement, including modernization and setting up of new ports
• Efficient Evacuation to and from hinterland

• Under Project Sagarmala Shipping ministry has formed new Committee to setup two major ports

• Sagar, West Bengal
• Dugarajapatnam,  Simandhra

• An illustrative list of the kind of development projects that could be undertaken in Sagarmala initiative are –

• Port-led industrialization
• Port based urbanization
• Port based and coastal tourism and recreational activities
• Short-sea shipping coastal shipping and Inland Waterways Transportation
• Ship building, ship repair and ship recycling
• Logistics parks, warehousing, maritime zones/services
• Integration with hinterland hubs
• Offshore storage, drilling platforms
• Specialization of ports in certain economic activities such as energy, containers, chemicals, coal, agro products, etc.
• Offshore Renewable Energy Projects with base ports for installations

Indian Airways

• Nationalized in 1953 – Indian Airlines
• Managed by Airport Authority of India (AAI)