As many as 20 of India’s 35 states and Union Territories have not spent any of their allotted Central Road Fund (CRF) resources despite the country’s desperate need for infrastructure development and the central government’s repeated pleas to boost public spending.

Usual suspects Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are in the list of those who failed to spend a single rupee on developing and maintaining state highways and rural roads under CRF, but so are top industrial performers like Delhi, Chandigarh and Maharashtra, and upcoming Himachal Pradesh. The data, compiled by the Union Ministry of Road Transport, is accurate up to October 31, 2008.

The CRF is compiled from levies on motor spirits including petrol and high-speed diesel. The total budgetary allocation out of this Fund for state governments in 2008-09 was Rs 1671.64 crore.

Uttar Pradesh, for whose roads the World Bank has pumped in millions of dollars, has spent nothing from the Rs 72 crore tranche it has already received under CRF so far. The Rs 20 crore that Bihar has received—out of its total allocation of Rs 40 crore for the whole year—remains untouched. Same is the case with Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh who have received Rs 87 crore and Rs 9.67 crore from their shares of Rs 175.9 crore and Rs 19.67 crore respectively.

In the zero-spend list are six of India’s seven Union Territories. This includes Delhi, which has got half of its CRF-sanctioned Rs 48 crore. Puducherry is the exception, having spent the Rs 3.81 crore allocated to it from its Rs-7.59 crore CRF entitlement.

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