"Let me, at the very outset, compliment my valued colleague, Shri Raghuvansh Prasad Singhji for organizing this important conference. He has been taking keen interest in all aspects of rural development and his vision, his dedication, his commitment to rural development is something truly remarkable and inspiration to all.

I am happy to be associated with this conference today. Rural connectivity is a key component of rural development. Without connectivity, our rural economy will not be able to develop. Through bharat Nirman, our Government has made an important commitment to invest in rural connectivity - connectivity through power, connectivity through telephones and connectivity through roads.

We have a vast road network of over 3 million kilometres spread across the length and breadth of our country. I believe there are three priority areas in road development. First, we need multi-laned highways connecting our vast country. This we are doing through a massive expansion of the National Highway Development Programme in which we are investing Rs.220,000 crores. Second we need a network of rural roads, linking our villages to towns, to market centres and to our highways. Third, we need good quality border roads and better road connectivity in the North-eastern region of our country.

Rural road connectivity is a critical component of our overall strategy for rural development. It promotes access to economic and social services and facilitates the growth processes in our rural economy. Improved connectivity reduces the cost of transportation of inputs and outputs, promotes diversification of crops and creation of non-farm employment opportunities in our rural areas. According to some studies, a million rupees spent on roads has seven times the impact on poverty reduction as compared to similar spending on specific anti-poverty programmes. Inter-State comparisons also show that expenditure on rural connectivity has a robust negative correlation with rural poverty. Some micro level studies also show that villages having good all weather road connectivity record better attendance of school teachers and doctors, para-medical personnel at their work places. Expansion of the rural road network, therefore, can have a multiplier, wider positive impact on development, well-being and welfare of the people.

Under Bharat Nirman, a time bound business plan has been prepared to provide all weather rural road connectivity to 66,000 villages. The investment requirement for achieving this goal has been estimated at Rs.48,000 cr. In order to ensure full funding of this programme, we have not only expanded the funds available under the PMGSY, but also created a special window under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF). This is being administered by NABARD.

While the Central Government has been supportive in funding these important programmes, State Governments have to make commensurate efforts to ensure timely completion of projects, and also cost-effective and good quality work is under-taken.

I would like to draw your attention to certain aspects of our road programme which require urgent attention. We need quality benchmarks and quality assurance for rural roads, as we have for the national highways. I am concerned about the fact that we invest crores of rupees every year on road construction and maintenance, and yet with every monsoon our roads get worn. I am happy to learn that the Rural Development Ministry under the distinguished leadership of Shri Raghuvansh Prasad Singh has taken the initiative to address this vital concern. A major reason for poor quality roads is corruption and the lack of quality assurance. Corruption in road construction projects has spread like cancer to every corner of our vast country. I sincerely hope we can implement both PMGSY and Bharat Nirman without this affliction, and in a transparent and accountable manner.

Secondly, we need to evolve cost effective technologies for construction of rural roads - technologies which are low-cost and use locally available materials to the maximum extent possible. We have so far not succeeded in promoting use of cost effective technologies which mostly remain as models and prototypes in our R&D institutions. What is needed is a policy and institutional framework for mainstreaming these alternatives for the development and expansion of rural road network.

Thirdly, we need to make road construction as labour intensive as possible. It has been successfully demonstrated in other countries that intermediate, labour based methods can be used for construction of rural roads without compromising with quality. Such methods increase the employment potential in road construction by at least five times. This is where I see a synergy between Bharat Nirman and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme.

Lastly, regular maintenance and upkeep of rural roads is a necessary pre-condition for sustaining the benefits that roads bring to our rural communities. Sadly, however, maintenance functions in the past had not received as much priority as they merit in our public systems. While we make every effort to mobilize resources for launching new construction projects, we display a remarkably niggardly attitude when it comes to routine maintenance. This, I believe is a natural weakness. We cannot condone it any more. Consequently, we are losing road assets worth thousands of crores annually due to poor road maintenance. We cannot afford to allow this state of affairs to continue any longer. The prevailing culture of indifference towards maintenance of public assets has to change and has to change immediately. Dedicated funding, proper institutional arrangements and accountability systems are required to ensure accepted levels of serviceability of our roads at all times. We should promote decentralised systems for maintenance and management of the rural road network.

Since rural roads happen to be a State subject, and the implementation responsibility rests with State Governments, I urge State governments and Central Ministries to work together in the true spirit of cooperative federalism. We have to demonstrate that we, as a nation, have the collective will and commitment to unleash and harness the growth potential of our vast rural economy. I wish your deliberations all success."