Evejn as the government is drawing up plans to invest over Rs 5.5 lakh crore towards building national highways during the 12th Five Year Plan period,it appears that very little thought has gone into mobilising the funds that would be required for their maintenance. Going by the trend witnessed in the current five year plan,the government has managed to allocate just about 50 per cent of the funds required to maintain national highways in the country in four of the five years. Maintenance and repair (M&R) falls under non-plan expenses of the government,while road building comes under plan expenditure. As a result,M&R bears the brunt when the government wants to control spending, a senior government official told The Indian Express. However,M&R has become a matter of concern as the road network and density is going up while the amounts provided have not. In 2011-12,the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) projected a requirement of Rs 2,800 crore for M&R but has managed to get just about Rs 1,027 crore so far leading to a 63.3 per cent or Rs 1,772 crore shortfall. The period from 2010-2011 has been the only exception during the 11th Plan period,when the shortfall was just 26 per cent. In all other years the shortfall was over 50 per cent. While it is a fact that an increasing number of road projects awarded under the build-operate-transfer (BOT) and the annuity modes come with a maintenance contract built into the agreement,this does not cover most existing highways. In addition,with new highways being developed in areas that pose challenges owing to terrain and the political climate,such as hilly regions and left-wing extremism affected areas,it becomes imperative to factor in M&R for them. The sub-group on national highways constituted for the 12th Plan has said that the basic cause for poor management of national highways is the gap in allocation of funds vis-a-vis the requirement,as per the maintenance norms of the government that was issued in 2001. The sub-group in its report said that the gap in M&R allocations over the years has resulted in a thin spread of resources on large stretches of the national highway network. This is all the more serious as the traffic is growing rapidly both in volume and weight, the report said. The committee further said that enhanced allocations under revised estimates during a financial year are received by MoRTH in December,which is too late for preparation of estimates matching the available allocations. It has,therefore,recommended that the government match allocations as per the estimated fund requirements in accordance with the ministrys norms either at the Budget Estimates stage or earlier.
