Abstract | Full Paper | PDF | Printer friendly format

Page 1 of 4
| Next |

Introduction
Rural roads are the tertiary road system which provide access to villages on to the main roads and various centres of activities. In developing countries like India, rural roads are termed as the roads passing through rural and agricultural areas, connecting villages to main roads and/or a town/market centre. The traffic on these roads is relatively low, comprising of mixed modes of transport like bullock carts, bicycle and motorized modes. Nearly, 55 per cent of the about 6 lakh rural habitations are provided all-weather road connectivity. In addition to these roads in rural areas some villages also have cart tracts and footpaths connecting to the road system.

Recently, the Government of India launched the nation wide programme known as Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, in short PMGSY, to provide connectivity to all the villages in a phased manner, so as to connect all the habitations having population of more than 500. The National Rural Road Development Agency (NRRDA) under the Ministry of Rural Development (MORD) has been made responsible to monitor the program and oversee its implementation. The programme is being implemented through the state level agencies by preparing the detailed district level rural road plans (DRRP) and the core network plans (CNP), which provide prioritized links for connectivity of habitations carved out of DRRP with quantifying population. Under this process, a huge database spatial and non-spatial, related to rural roads, is being generated all over the country. Handling, managing and updating of the data by the

traditional methods is not only tedious and time consuming, it is difficult to sort and retrieve. To obviate these difficulties it is, therefore, considered necessary to develop all the spatial and attribute data in digital format. Geographic Information System (GIS) is a computer-based tool which can handle the entire database and help in the management of the en2.

Background on GIS
GIS is an information system designed to work with data referenced by spatial/ geographical coordinates. In other words ‘GIS’ is both a database system with specific capabilities for spatially referenced data as well as a set of operations for working with the data. It may also be considered as a higher order map data management system. GIS tools can be used effectively for planning, progress monitoring and as an effective tool for maintenance management of the road system. The database development under planning purposes can be easily used for maintaining and up keeping of the road system. It can also be used as an advanced online management system, which accommodates multi access data users. GIS has been widely used for various applications in transportation planning and management (Millar, 2001). Verma and Dhingra (2002) has reviewed development of GIS-Transportation and brought out the trends and future directions of research needs.

Potential use of GIS in rural roads
The major components of rural roads are planning, project preparation, construction, monitoring and maintenance. Planning includes preparation of district rural road plans and core network plan (MORD 2001) which is helpful for identification of the links to be developed, and a broad estimation that is required for allocation of funds, since each selected link of rural roads is considered as a project. The detailed project report includes the survey information such as detailed design and drawings, cost estimates for various road works, etc., which are required for execution of the road works. The same information will be highly useful during construction monitoring, quality control and maintenance activities. Thus the district rural road plan with the core network prepared in GIS platform can be extended as a road information system for each project by incorporating the detailed project report data and drawings. This in turn then will be the basis for award of work, monitoring the progress of the work and quantity control in the field.

GIS Application in planning
GIS technology is useful in network as well as geographic analysis in the field of rural road planning (Sikdar, 2002) and measurement of rural accessibility (Durai et al, 2003). To avoid any duplication in planning of rural roads it is suggested that a master plan for rural roads at district level be prepared (NTPC, 1980; IRC, 1984; 2000). Similarly, guidelines for preparation of District Rural Road Plan for implementation under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana also suggest the master plan based prioritised rural road links for implementation. The master plan for rural roads prepared at Block level is convenient both from the point of map preparation & data collection and also for obtaining approval, under the Panchayati Raj System. All the block level information sets in a district can be combined easily to form a District Rural Road Plan. Normally, 1:50,000 scale is convenient and easy to handle at the Block level. Therefore, the base map for a Block is prepared at the 1:50,000 scale by referring to the Survey of India toposheets which have proper geo-referencing system. In the first instance, if the base map for road network is being prepared in GIS environment, it will be easy for preparation of District Rural Road Plan (DRRP) and Core Network Plan (CNP). The relevant attribute data collected for preparation of the DRRP can also be incorporated easily in the GIS base map to generate the core network on population size criteria of habitations for connectivity as well as to do prioritization of the links for implementation. The network and the route analysis modules available in the various GIS software (Caliper Corp. 2001, ESRI 2003) can be used to optimize the network by adopting the connectivity principles.

Case study – Preparation of DRRP
Simdega Block in Jharkhand State has been taken as the case study to demonstrate the steps involved in the preparation of GIS base map preparation and core network plan making. As a first step, the map of 1:50,000 scale was prepared by taking Survey of India toposheets as the base on paper and incorporating the features of road network, habitation locations, water bodies and block/district/state boundaries. This map was further updated by referring to Census of India - Community Block map and road maps available with the field engineers. The updated map was taken as the base map for generating spatial information for the Block.

Page 1 of 4
| Next |