Operationalising an effective road fund
Monday, 13 December 2010
MA Samad
The absence of regular maintenance activity, according to one estimate, alone costs the country in the neighbourhood of $1.0 million every day, in terms of the depreciated value of the roads from wearing and tearing. No estimate is available for the compound loss that occurs from slowed down movement of vehicles, depreciation of vehicles from moving on pot-holed surfaces, delays caused to businesses from inability to reach goods in time, etc. But these estimates, if taken for a period, say even a day, would very likely show up a large figure.
Thus, proper road maintenance needs to be ensured through proper plans and their implementation for competitive and cost-efficient operation of the economy. For this, the government needs to operationalise effectively a separate 'road fund'. Presently, government allocates an amount of money for road maintenance which is meager compared to the need. Besides, this allocation cannot be also spent in time with best effects because of the present mode of spending through coordinated activities of the Ministry of Communications, Roads and Highways Department (RHD) and the Ministry of Finance.
The road fund can get around several problems namely one of the bureaucracies involved in coordinating activities between different bodies, delays and corruption thereof and inadequacy of funds. The suggestion is to beef up the road fund by raising greater resources from road users through direct fees, tolls, licence fees, etc. Even foreign aid to the sector may be routed to this fund. The fund should be placed under the RHD for spending from it directly.
In this way, both funds for maintenance shall rise as well as the capacity to undertake immediate works on detection of poor road surfaces or even anticipatory advanced works on this ground. RHD with an autonomous status and the road fund under its control, should go for annual regular maintenance of the roads than the present system of as and when the need arises.
The RHD should also aim to make the road users responsible by actually discouraging at field levels overloading that leads to faster crumbling of the roads. This would also require effective cooperation of the traffic police in this matter . RHD should also engage in planning and projection works to find out the likely increases in traffic some years from now and prepare for both building new roads or repair of the old ones taking into account the added pressures from the potential additional users.
The absence of regular maintenance activity, according to one estimate, alone costs the country in the neighbourhood of $1.0 million every day, in terms of the depreciated value of the roads from wearing and tearing. No estimate is available for the compound loss that occurs from slowed down movement of vehicles, depreciation of vehicles from moving on pot-holed surfaces, delays caused to businesses from inability to reach goods in time, etc. But these estimates, if taken for a period, say even a day, would very likely show up a large figure.
Thus, proper road maintenance needs to be ensured through proper plans and their implementation for competitive and cost-efficient operation of the economy. For this, the government needs to operationalise effectively a separate 'road fund'. Presently, government allocates an amount of money for road maintenance which is meager compared to the need. Besides, this allocation cannot be also spent in time with best effects because of the present mode of spending through coordinated activities of the Ministry of Communications, Roads and Highways Department (RHD) and the Ministry of Finance.
The road fund can get around several problems namely one of the bureaucracies involved in coordinating activities between different bodies, delays and corruption thereof and inadequacy of funds. The suggestion is to beef up the road fund by raising greater resources from road users through direct fees, tolls, licence fees, etc. Even foreign aid to the sector may be routed to this fund. The fund should be placed under the RHD for spending from it directly.
In this way, both funds for maintenance shall rise as well as the capacity to undertake immediate works on detection of poor road surfaces or even anticipatory advanced works on this ground. RHD with an autonomous status and the road fund under its control, should go for annual regular maintenance of the roads than the present system of as and when the need arises.
The RHD should also aim to make the road users responsible by actually discouraging at field levels overloading that leads to faster crumbling of the roads. This would also require effective cooperation of the traffic police in this matter . RHD should also engage in planning and projection works to find out the likely increases in traffic some years from now and prepare for both building new roads or repair of the old ones taking into account the added pressures from the potential additional users.