- Development Verses Displacement: Cornerstone of India’s Economy; Appraisal on Road Development In India   click here to open paper content827 kb
by    Dutta, Bikram & Bandyopadhyay, Sanhita | bikramdutta@hotmail.com   click here to send an email to the auther(s) of this paper
Short Outline
This paper appraises the displacement due to road infrastructure development
in India’s boom economy over the period.
Abstract
India is a developing country and it requires fast space quality
infrastructure development, which is the need of current times. For any
development, land is required and the land belongs to the people.
Government is acquiring land for public purpose. Government of India (GoI)
has substantially increased its focus towards infrastructure development,
over the last few decades which lead to economic growth of the country.
Acquisition of land for public purpose displaces people, forcing them to
give up their home, assets and means of livelihood. The GoI recognizes
the need to minimize large scale displacement to the extent possible and,
where displacement is inevitable, the need to handle with utmost care and
forethought issues relating to Resettlement and Rehabilitation (R&R) of
Project Affected Families (PAF) and formulate R&R Policies (NRRP 2007 and
draft bill 2011. The ground reality differs from it. Road network is vital
to the economic development, trade and social integration. It facilitates
smooth conveyance of both people and goods. Size of the road network, its
quality and access has a bearing on transport costs. Besides, road network
promote specialization, extend markets and thereby enable exploitation of
the economies of scale. Global competition has made the
existence of efficient road transport and logistic systems in delivery
chain an absolute imperative. Easy accessibility, flexibility of
operations, door-to-door service and reliability have earned road
transport an increasingly higher share of both passenger and freight
traffic visà-vis other transport modes. Transport demand in India has been
growing rapidly. In recent years this demand has shifted mainly to the
advantage of road transport, which carries about 87 percent and 61 per cent
of passenger and freight transport demand arising for land based modes of
transport (i.e. roadways and railways taken together) respectively. Road
transport has grown despite significant barriers to inter- State freight
and passenger movement compared to inland waterways, railways and air which
do not face rigorous en-route checks/barriers.
The total road length in India had increased significantly from 3.99 lakh
Kilometre (Km) as on 31st March 1951 to 41.10 lakh Km as on 31st March
2008. Concomitantly, the surfaced road had increased from 1.57 lakh Km to
around 20.36 lakh Km over the same period. The total road length
had expanded significantly since 1970s. It increased from 9.15 lakh Km in
March 1971 to 41.10 lakh Km in March 2008 - an increase of 34.9 % over
these 37 years yielding a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.1 %. The
total road network in the country grew from 36.21 lakh in March
2004 to 41.10 lakh in March 2008 reflecting an increase of 4.89 lakh Km
yielding a CAGR of 3.2 % over this period.
Available reports indicate that around 21.3 million people are internally
displaced populations (IDPs) due to development projects in India. IDPs
include those displaced by dams (16.4 million), mines (2.55 million),
industrial development (1.25 million) and wildlife sanctuaries and national
parks (0.6 million) etc (IDMC, 2007). 21% of total shares transport and
communication sector development. This paper appraises the displacement due
to road infrastructure development in India’s boom economy over the period.
Keywords
Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2013: Frontiers of Planning - Evolving and declining models of city planning practice
click here to open paper content  Click to open the full paper as pdf document
click here to send an email to the auther(s) of this paper  Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper