THE DEVELOPMENT OF LOW-VOLUME ROADS IN INDIA

India faces the enormous task of providing all-weather road access to all of its nearly 600,000 villages. The Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) has been engaged in research work on a variety of aspects, some of which are discrete items. Reported in this paper are findings in regard to the study of the socioeconomic impact of road development in rural regions, network planning, pavement design, and efforts to evolve intermediate technologies. The study of socioeconomic aspects indicates that some parameters are more directly affected by road development, such as literacy, proportion of non-agricultural workers, unit agricultural yield, and unit fertilizer consumption. Other socioeconomic parameters on which road development has a more indirect effect are facilities for health, education, banking, and postal services. A new planning methodology that is based on graph theory is presented. In its present form, it provides a simple method for more rational decision-making, but it has certain limitations. Reported herein are findings from comprehensive work performed by CRRI on the design of pavement for low-volume roads to allow for such elements as traffic of solid-wheeled carts, varying subgrade moisture conditions, and minimum acceptable serviceability levels. Intermediate technologies that center around the use of agricultural tractors with agricultural implements and other towed equipment are also mentioned.