Problems in Indian Road Transportation 2022

A good road transport network should provide the proper connection of public and private spaces necessary for the functioning and development of the society. This article highlights the major problems in the Indian road transport system with current statistics

Status of Indian Road Transportation

India constitutes 18 per cent of the world’s population and ranks 5th in nominal GDP. But, simply put, the state of India’s infrastructure is very ugly.

India ranks second in terms of road length (5,603,293 km) providing 85 per cent passenger traffic and 60 per cent freight traffic. The total road length of national highways is 1,42,126 km, but only 5 percent of national highways are four-lane (7,000 km) and only 1 percent of roads are express highways (1,583). Also, large number of people lacks access to any all-weather road.

Roads in metro and urban areas like Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai are very congested and not maintained properly. Roads in the suburbs and countryside are poorly constructed with full of potholes and cracks. According to the WHO and MORTH, India tops the list of road deaths in 2018 with 2,99,091 road related deaths and 1,51,417 accident related deaths.

India’s average road speed is half that of the world average, and freight traffic in India is more than twice the freight rate of developed countries. Problems with Indian road transport are stifling India’s GDP growth by one to two per cent and losing 1 crore jobs every year, according to KPMG, an independent business consultancy report.

Road Transportation development

The Government of India has promised to double the existing national highways through projects like Bharatmala. It plans to add an additional 35,000 km of national highways and 18,000 km of expressways by 2022. However, due to bureaucracy, regional political situation, lack of funds and problems in land acquisition, many projects were delayed and could not be implemented.

The World Bank estimates that India will need $ 500 billion in investment over the next 10 years to improve road transport.