Despite a national consensus on the need to create an atmosphere conducive to investment in this sector and five years of liberalization, there has been little progress. The Rakesh Mohan Committee, in its report on infrastructure development, has found that the road sector has actually got step motherly treatment at the hands of the state in allocation of funds. Successive five year plans have steadily under-allocated funds for road constituted 6.7 percent of the total public sector investment outlay in the First Five Year Plan and has incredibly fallen to a mere three percent in the Eighth Five Year Plan. Investment in national highways which was 1.4 percent of the total plan outlay in the first plan has come down to 0.6 percent in the Eighth Plan. The report points out that in 1995-96, only Rs. 700 crores was available for development of national highways while a meager Rs. 225 crores were provided for maintenance.
Similar trends exist for state highways.
This has stymied the growth of the main road network - comprising both national and state highways. Rapid expansion in road transport On the other hand there has been a vehicle boom in the country in last one decade. The number of vehicles has ballooned from about 5.4 in 1986 to about 31.5 M now. There is shift in passenger and cargo traffic from rail to road especially for leads up to 400 kms. Estimates reveal that the freight traffic by road is expected to grow from 700 BTK in 1995 to 1175 BTK by the year 2001.