India's roads take a great leap forward

As India celebrates the 75th year of its 'tryst with destiny', its road network is the intake-off mode with new highways and expressways being built. These will further catalyse socio-economic change. While latest technologies are being used, funding and land acquisition issues persist.ShahkarAbidi reports.

It was May 18, 2002, and the conference hall at the Bengaluru International Exhibition Center (BIEC) was -jammed packed. Lt Gen Rajeev Chaudhry, VSM, Director General, Border Roads Organisation (BRO) rose to address the gathering at Excon, a construction equipment industry event. After the customary pleasantries, he came straight to the point stressing on the significance of roads and highways in the development of a country.

To emphasise his point, Lt Gen. Chaudhry referred to India and South Korea, two nations that won independence from foreign rule around the same time. While India had it on August 15, 1947; South Korea got it a year later. For the first 10 years, he said, the destinies of the two nations remained almost similar with poverty, lack of industrialisation, and lower development indexes. The GDP per capita of both the countries was almost similar at around $82-84 at the start of the 1960s.

However, the economic trajectories of both countries, however, soon began diverged in the subsequent years and decades. Even as the Cold War between US and Russia was beginning to touch new heights, India and South Korea chose two different directions. Under President Park Chung-hee, South Korea embarked on infrastructure development constructing grand highways and expressways across the length and breadth of the country, as it put in place its policy for an export-driven economy. Chung-hee was at the helm till his death in 1979 but during that time, the country's development in the economic and social sphere continued despite the relative lack of natural resources.