16% of Secondary Roads In Assam Double-Laned

GUWAHATI: At a time when Dispur is talking a lot about road safety and making citizens’ life comfortable by building better roads, most of the major district roads in accident-prone Assam are single-lane ones. The State has barely 16 percent double-lane secondary roads.

Assam is an accident-prone State. But double-laning of roads which could reduce the number of accidents has utterly failed to keep pace with the rise in the number of vehicles in the State.

The State has around 3,900 km national highways, 2,530 km state highways and 4,379 major district roads. Of them, most of the State highways and major district roads are single-lane ones. According to the Economic Survey of Assam, 2018-19, there are barely 16 per cent double-lane secondary roads in the State. This is against the ambitious target of 2021 set by the Indian Road Congress Vision (IRCV) to achieve 100 per cent double-laning of all State highways and 40 per cent double-laning of major district roads. It is glaringly visible that the State is lagging far behind in achieving the vision target.

Roads are constructed in Assam as funds keep coming from the Centre and other sources in the form of loans and assistances. However, the pace of work is not as the situation demands to achieve the target set by the IRCV. Let alone meeting the IRCV target, the State is ill-equipped to cope with the increasing number of vehicles. As on March 31, 2018, vehicles on the roads in Assam was 33.09 lakh. This is the outcome of the rise in the number of vehicles outpacing the number of roads constructed or double-laned in the State. The situation has come to such a pass that the motor vehicle density in the State in 2017-18 was 42.2 per cent per sq km against 6.8 per cent per sq km in 2001-01.

Apart from the rapid rise in the number of vehicles in the State, there are other factors as well that add to the woes of traffic congestion in the State. Land acquisition has been a nagging problem in Assam with respect to the broadening and constructing roads. The weather of the State also permits four to six months a year for construction of roads. The soil texture of Assam is also dampening for longevity of roads. The lifespan of roads in Assam is much less than roads elsewhere in the country. But then, if the neighbouring States of Assam can construct good roads in time, why cannot Assam?

With a view to cover its inability, sources in the State PWD say that they have taken up the task of widening major district roads amidst various constraints. Since most of the single-lane district roads were constructed in very unplanned manner, sources said expansion of roads into double lane ones has also become a Herculean task now.

“We can’t do any earth-filling work during the rainy season. This slows down the pace of road works. We hope to widen most of the major district roads in the next two years,” an official of the department said.

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