Quantification of rural accessibility and development of a need based approach for Rural road network planning

Abstract

Accessibility in rural areas may be characterized and quantified at distinctive levels regional and habitational. The regional accessibility gives a wide comprehensive view about overall accessibility in different nations, states, districts and blocks which help in positioning them according to their accessibility levels. Habitational level accessibility gives accessibility levels of each habitation to different sectors. They mirror the issues confronted by the villagers in getting to the essential or social needs. Quantifying accessibility at both the levels are valuable for planners and decision makers. In this study accessibility has been quantified at two different levels. newlineRural Access Index (RAI), one of the indicators developed by the International Development Association (IDA) has been utilized to find accessibility at regional level. The indices were also determined as per Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) definition of accessibility. This method has been used to find out the contribution of the construction of all-weather roads on improving accessibility in rural areas at regional level. As a case study, PMGSY roads viz., all-weather roads have been considered in this study. RAI has been determined with and without the presence of PMGSY roads as the difference will show the improvement in accessibility levels made due to these roads. Considering the fact that the accessibility would vary with the spatial position of the villages, case studies were conducted in five districts namely Alwar, Jhunjhunu, Tonk, Bikaner and Churu of Rajasthan, India, having different population densities. newlineThe outcome of this method is expected to help the policy makers in ranking the districts and blocks in terms of accessibility levels and accordingly allocate funds for the uniform development of the state. From the impact analysis using PMGSY definition, it has been observed that there is a notable improvement in accessibility in all the districts but was higher in densely populated districts.