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DPR514 Energy and Environment
Relationship of Road Infrastructure development and
Improvement Human well being- Socio Economic Study
Assignment 01
Name: H.M.Manjula Pushpakumara
Reg. No. MDP/11/12/645
Lecturer: Prof. R. Shanthini
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Relationship of Road Infrastructure development and
Improvement Human well being- Socio Economy Study
Development is in the problematic. All nations are going for achieving the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs). Achieving the MDGs is, for some countries, is a matter which is unachievable in the
coming foreseeable future. The difficulties of achieving the development perhaps relate to management
and sometimes link with the resource utilization. In some countries, it amalgamates with infrastructure
development in several sectors.
Introduction
The need for road infrastructure development from the fact that there is a greater need for
accessibility for basic needs and smooth movement of abundant agricultural products especially
from the rural areas to the markets in urban centers. The improvement of transportation
network in the rural area in this regard becomes imperative. This study was conducted to reveal
and analysis the relevancy of road infrastructure development for socio-economic
advancement new emerging areas with special attention on contribution for environmental
degradation and impact of energy consumption. This study was conducted in the area where
the new road infrastructure development was in place. So the study had to be limited to the
Kilinochchi district. The study used the questioners and direct observation to collect the
information in this regards. This study analyzes the conventional ideologies in road
infrastructure development sector. First one is linkage between road development and
economic development. Secondly, it discussed and analysis whether the road infrastructure
developments are investment or not. And then, third one was whether the road links rural
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areas to urban areas in effective ways, and linkage between road development and the
improvement of accessibility for basic needs and services was analysis. Finally, this study
analysis road brings the quality to the people who are living in the area. And then as a result
of this study, unconventional ideologies will be explored some extent to provide critical
comparison between conventional and unconventional ideologies.
Development of infrastructure in a country, in the context of nation state, is very much
associated with the socio-economic and political situation in the country. Most of decision
making instance are impacted these condition. And In developmening countires, this decision
making is influnciql by mere institutions. Then it may reflect only the political aspiration. In
every country, there is a long history for road infrastructure development. It unintentionally got
remarkable attention in the process of development. As per some development practitioners,
without development of road infrastructure development, development o the country cant
be through about. So it, for them, links with the development of road infrastructure. So most
of the nations are putting so much of money, in the form of investment, to develop the road
infrastructure. Sometime, it is the first priority for some nations. In the context of rural
development too, the improvement of rural transport network assist to rural development1.
Despite large amounts money spent on rural road and urban road infrastructure development,remarkably little formal evidence exists on their benefits at the societal and household level.
Here what has been lacking is a general methodology for estimating these gains using micro-
scale data2.
Any meaningful measure of welfare benefits and social advantages must be stranded in an
economic and social model in the rural and urban context. Only by specifying how a particular
road improvement, whether actual or hypothetical, would change the parameters of such a
model, are welfare statements possible.
1http://www.globaljournalseries.com/index/index.php/gjss/article/viewFile/124/pdf
2http://elibrary.worldbank.org/docserver/download/4484.pdf?expires=1332464338&id=id&accname=guest&chec
ksum=6BD07AEDE2E13F5A1FD8AA89016DC747
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Each and every country, by and large, has its own development policy framework that may be
linked wit the MDG direction. Based on this policy guidance, nation state develops
development strategy for the country. This strategic direction may associates with countrys
political direction. The creation of prosperity to the majority of the people requires connectivity
through roads, electricity, telecommunication, information technology and education and
ensured quality in the fields of health services, sanitation and in water supply. Hence, the
development strategy relies not only on promoting investments for infrastructure based on
commercial and economic returns, but also on the creation of equitable access to such
infrastructure development to enable people to engage in gainful economic activities. Providing
quality services and improving service delivery, which cater to the changing demands of rapid
economic growth and social development of the country has been a central concern of the
government3.
Among infrastructure, roads are considered of first interest to reduce poverty due to the widely
accepted consensus that transport infrastructure has a significant, positive and substantial
impact on economic growth and poverty as it enhances the connectivity of isolated and remote
areas4.
A first transmission channel of roads impact is to facilitate provision of basic needs to the poor
such as health and education. A common feature of poor people is that they suffer frominadequate access to some human capital facilities that are essential to escape from poverty
5.
With the advent of road evaluation, it was discovered that the relationship between access to
road and development was not always clear6. The main argument that will be discussed in this
review is identifying whether the development improves the accessibility for basic needs of
human being. The definition of development is very much confusing for most of development
practitioners. As this is context specific term, there are so may meaning for it. But practically,
the development is defined as an improvement of human well being.
3http://www.dailynews.lk/2012/03/16/pol02.asp
4http://elibrary.worldbank.org/docserver/download/5209.pdf?expires=1332462692&id=id&accname=guest&chec
ksum=C798C76787987D34EA69B7B26303C72C5
Ibid6
Ellis, S.D, 1997, Key Issues in rural transport in developing countries, Transport Research Library ,ODA
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So development is not the end result of the whole endeavor. It is a mean of achieving human
well being in effective and efficiency way7. Hence, objectives of achieving so called
development is to address the human well being issues.
Government Policy Framework on Road Development
History of road network in Sri Lanka goes back to Anuradhapura civilization. With the
improvement of the system, in Portuguese and Dutch era, it got improved with some changes.
During the British period, with the expansion of export cultivation such as coffee and tee
plantation, British government improved the road network in the country with the
establishment of railway networks to transport the up country export plantation products. As
in other country, Sri Lanka also has road development policy. With the realization of strategic
co-relation between investment and economic growth, public investment in road infrastructure
development has been increased. This increment will assist to improve the 2,900 km national
highways, 1706 provincial roads, 35,755 rural roads all over the Island8.
Road constriction in Kilinochchi
7Duraiappah, A.K and et el, 2005, Have Participatory Approach increased Capabilities? iisd
8http://www.treasury.gov.lk/publications/mahindaChintanaVision-2010full-eng.pdf
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The national policy of the government is to ensure the sufficient infrastructure facilities to meet
the need of community. The second aspect of the policy is to provide a reliable, safe and
speedy transport system which is comfortable and affordable to the community and thereby
contribute to the growth of the economy. Draft National transport policy identified its vision as
To ensure a satisfactory access to and choice within a reliable, efficient and integrated system
of transport modes and services that satisfies the diverse public and corporate needs for
mobility for both goods and people9.
Methodology
The methodology of this was designed to maximize the use of both qualitative and quantitativeinformation available for analysis of relationship between the road development and human
well being enhancement. The study was based on several conventional assumptions that
strengthen the ideologies on road infrastructure development. Some of the assumptions are
road development increases the economic development; road developments are investment;
road links rural to urban; road improves the accessibility; road brings the equity to all. This
questioned whether these assumptions are attainable or not. General understanding of road
infrastructure development says that there is a positive impact on all these sectors. It focused
both physical and non physical accessibility of people raised as a result of road infrastructure
development.
It used the both non structural interviews and direct observation to gather the qualitative and
quantitative information. The study area has not being finished its the road infrastructure
development. So this study period is too early to get the comprehensive understanding on
relationship between roar infrastructure development and human well being. No considerable
impact can be observed with in this short period of time. To get the real impact that will be
generated by road infrastructure development, it may take little more time.
9http://www.ntc.gov.lk/pdf/Draft%20National%20Transport%20Policy.pdf
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Study Area
Kilnochchci district centered road infrastructure development area was selected as the study
area. As this is a new settlement and infrastructure development area, it can be observed the
impact that might be create by road infrastructure development made by a new intervention.
And also, this area is having very less infrastructure capacities. So it limits the human capacity
too. But still, the services encompasses with human basic needs cant be observed effectively
because, the people in the study areas is still not settled down. So real needs of people in the
areas cant be recognized. These are some of the issues that were faced in this study. As
observed, it may take another three years to settle them properly. For this study,
Selvanagar, Ambalkulama, Krisnapura and Kilinochchi Two area were selected. All these three
areas except Kilinochchi town area, new housing settlement programe is being conducted.
Environment will get suffered
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Transport and Energy consumption
With the increase global green house gas emission, climate change creates unpredictable
extreme whether events. The relationship between transportation and energy is a direct one.
With globalization, transportation is accounting for a growing share of the total amount of
energy spent for implementing, operating and maintaining the international range and scope of
human activities. Energy consumption has a strong correlation with the level of development10
.
Transportation now consumes more than 20% of the world's total primary energy and
produces much of the world's air pollution. In just 30 years, the number of cars in the world will
soar from today's 400 million or so, to more than one billion. Private transportation will then
need 2-1/2 times more energy and produce 2-1/2 times more air pollution. If global trends are
projected to year 2100, the world will need 10 times more total energy, and transportation will
consume 40% of this much larger pool11
.Transport is the biggest consumer of petroleum
products. Transport comprises of road and rail transport. The data published by authorities do
not show the breakdown of consumption of these two categories. The biggest consumed fuel
type is auto diesel for heavy vehicles and light vehicles12
.
10http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch8en/conc8en/ch8c2en.html
11http://www.rqriley.com/energy.htm
12http://sa-energy.net/filestore/12033248770_forumadmin.pdf
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Sources: http://sa-energy.net/filestore/12033248770_forumadmin.pdf
Consumer energy consumption has a link with economic development and the population
growth in the country. Late 1970 policies in economic development sector significantly
influenced the energy consumption in the country. With the 1977 liberalization economicpolicy changes, the energy consumption in transport sector has been increased. Total energy
consumption in Sri Lanka increased on the average by 3.4% per annum during 1990-200413
.
Dureing the period of 2010, around 359,243 numbers of new vehicles have been registered.
Within this year too, there is a progressive registration trend14
13http://sa-energy.net/filestore/12033248770_forumadmin.pdf
14http://www.motortraffic.gov.lk/web/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=84&Itemid=115&lang=e
n
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Economic Impacts of Road Development
Development of transport sector, as has been identified in other infrastructure sectors such as
irrigation, power generation, watershed management, has impacts on economic enhancement.
The impact of road development generates its impacts in both directly and indirectly. The
indirect impact is through its contribution to the growth of the economy. Development of the
transport sector like other infrastructure sectors leads to increase in factor productivity in
various sectors by increasing accessibility and reducing transport costs. In general, transport
development focuses on increasing efficiency and growth, although in some cases like
connecting rural link roads to tribal or remote areas. It may have directly influence on poverty
reduction. It is, however, notable that even growth oriented transport development projects
make important contribution to poverty reduction15
.
Investment in the transport sector generates income-earning opportunities for the poor by
creating jobs for unskilled labor in construction and maintenance of transport infrastructure. In
addition to employment, investment in rural transport results in transport induced lower prices
of consumer goods that bring relief to the poor. But increasing of the income or economy will
be depending not only on road development and traveling network. To increase the economy
in an area, there should be local level market where the local people can sell their production
and services. Road infrastructure development may lead to improve the access for urban large
scale marketers. If then, urban market will have access and, in this open market conditions,
they may have control over local market. So, the price of local production and services is
decided by urban market. To sustain the urban market mechanism, there should be sufficient
profit margin. So production and services of local will get minimum profit. As identified by
Ahmed and Hossain, poor groups in the rural areas gain more from crops , wages ,livelihoods
15http://www.unescap.org/ttdw/Publications/TPTS_pubs/pub_1959/rurpov_ch3.pdf
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and fisheries while the richer groups gain more from businesses and industries16
.Under these
condition, buying and selling market in the local context is controlled by urban market.
Interior Accessibility for water
Road Development and Transport Cost
Gradually increasing transport cost in developing countries is a burden for rural people.
Transport cost in developing counties depends on few factors. These are fuel price and
inflation rate in the country. Developed roads or new semi-highways attract the new
sophisticated vehicles and also maintenance of these vehicles is costly matter. So these vehicles
owners have to generate good profit to maintain these vehicles. A poor person has very less
access to basic needs through these vehicles. Most of the basic needs are usually located in
district or regional centers and, then, the access is very often along all weather roads and only
by hired vehicles17
.
16Ellis, S.D, 1997, Key Issues in rural transport in developing countries, Transport Research Library ,ODA
17Ibid
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In the study areas, access to health services is depended on availability of transport services
thought the hospitals provides health services free of chargers , moat of the chargers are
incurred due to transport. Therefore, with the improvement of road conditions, the transport
costs are also improved.
Road Development and Equity Consideration
It is very much obvious that the infrastructure development increase the economic activities if
it was planned and implemented effective manner. Economic activities work if it assists to
improve the human well being. With the improvement of road network, people in the remote
areas will have the access for input with law cost and they may have bargaining power for their
production.
The social and economic dimensions of transport use show that the poor and marginal groups
living in rural areas often walk, or use non-motorized transports (cycles, rickshaw vans, animal
carts) that are environment-friendly and do not account for GHG emissions.
Further, men and women have different travel characteristics following from their different
transport needs and use patterns that result in different implications for sustainability. Studies
have noted that gender differences in transport use are common in terms of: the purpose of
the travel (domestic tasks and caring activities are disproportionately higher for women
compared to men) character of trips (women often make chained trips linking multiple
activities) means of travel used (women mostly use public transport)18
.
It allows the basic access and development needs of people to be met safely and consistent
with human and ecosystem health and promotes equity within and between successive
generations; it is affordable, operates fairly and efficiently, offers a choice of transport mode,
and supports a competitive economy, as well as balanced regional development; and, it limits
emissions and waste within the planets ability to absorb them[4]
. Viewed in this way,
sustainable transport systems have the potential to facilitate achieving the Millennium
18http://www.afritest.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26&Itemid=20
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Development Goals (MDGs), particularly, alleviating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving
universal primary education, contributing to gender equity through improved mobility,
improving health, ensuring environmental sustainability and developing partnership through
linking people and places.
Road Development and Agriculture Enhancement
In most developing countries, agriculture is the dominant economic activity, accounting for
large shares of employment and output. Most of rural farmers depend on their agricultural
product and its sale. To sell the agricultural product, they need to deal with, in most cases, the
urban market. The infrastructure development is compulsory to ensure the selling ability.Transportation is a key component to agricultural development. Even if the farmers have
good harvest, if they dont have a way to transport these to market, farmer cant sell the
product to get the money to expend to other goods and services. In such cases, the good road
network.
And sustainable transport mechanism is very important. The improved transport facilities
greatly affect the agricultural productions. The reduced transport cost has two effects on
agricultural production - (i) On productivity and (ii) On marketability (Schuster, 1973).
Productivity is primarily affected by the reduced cost of inputs, especially fertilizers etc. at the
agricultural production site. It becomes profitable to increase the use of fertilizers as long as the
input costs are below the volume of increased production. As shown in Fig. 1 1 before the
transport project, the price of fertilizer at the particular production site under consideration
was higher than the value of the increase in production obtainable from it. So fertilizers were
used. But after the realization of the transport project, the local price of fertilizer falls, thus
justifying its use up to point19
.
19http://pmgsy.nic.in/pmg91091.asp
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Marketability can be assessed by relating the change in total production cost, including
transport cost of market price. The reduced transport cost for the product and for inputs will
increase the area within which marketable production may take place. The highway project can
help to increase agricultural production by providing mobility for inputs to facilitate a green
revolution. The shift in the self sufficiency oriented farming to market oriented commercial
farming is the consequent result of the highways. The improvement of transport facilities will
also change the crop pattern. By lowering transport cost, and thus production cost, crops may
be considered which were previously ruled out. Given the cost of agricultural production per
unit of output, then the market cost per unit will increase as distance to the market increases.
The total cost consists of total cost of input, transport cost of inputs, unloading, and cost of
input, loading cost of products, transport cost of products and unloading cost of products. The
distance within which market production is worthwhile can be increased by appropriate
transportation facilities, which would lower the transportation unit cost by either reducing the
slope of the cost curve or by reducing the jumps occasioned by handling charges. This is the
primary objective of transportation policy for agriculture. Also transport speed determines
marketability of agricultural products and this is especially so in the case of perishables like
vegetables, fruits, milk and dairy products. These will spoil if the transport time exceeds certain
limits. So transport time and marketability are directly related.
Transportation and Travelling time
The one of the main objectives of improving the road networks is to reduce the travelling time
from one place to destination. And it also reduces the access time to basic needs. Travelling
time is encompassed with two reasons. One is the means of transportation and the second is
road condition.
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If these two conditions are perfectly meets the criterias, then only the travelling time can be
reduced. But from peoples point of view, travelling time is meaningless concept especially in
third world countries. It should be access time for basic needs such as health, education,
marketing, water, firewood and other subsistence tasks20
.
Table 1: Average travelling time expenditure for basic needs in minutes
No Category Ambalkula
m
Selvanagar Krishnapura
m
Kilinochchi
Town
1 Primary Education 45 25 30 15
2 Primary Health 90 70 30 25
3 Market 50 45 20 10
4 Drinking water 35 40 25 5
5 Firewood 15 10 20 30
6 Primary Administrative
services
25 45 30 25
Environmental Impacts
There is a rising awareness on impacts of road development on environment .Some of the
major environmental impacts of road development include damage to ecosystems, loss of bio
diversity and loosening productive agricultural lands, unplanned resettlement of large numbers
of people, permanent disruption of local economic activities, demographic change, accelerated
20Ellis,S.D, 1997, Key Issues in rural transport in developing countries, Transport Research Laboratory Library,
Overseas Development Administration.
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urbanization, and introduction of disease21
. In the study areas, two kind of environmental
impacts can be observed. One is the impact made to the environmental during the road
construction period is that t his mage scaled road construction compare to the local context,
diverts the natural ecosystem by influencing their natural habitat. Due to flood, the road is
being raised to higher level. It conflicts with natural behavior surface water flows. The second
observation is that the impact that is happen due to human access to the natural resource.
With the increase of access, is very easy for human to change the natural environment specially
forest. With the increased demand for wood, forest cover will get affected for human
influence.
Road as a Political CapitalRoads played a critical role as political capital in all of the study locations. Decisions about
where roads should be built, which roads should be upgraded, and which roads should be
maintained were heavily influenced by the prevailing political context. Under the road
construction program in the study area, only A9 road is under the constructed. So much of
money is being invested on this. But by developing this A9 road as a semi highway, access for
basic needs cant be ensured. Only the people who live along the A9 road have the access for
selected basic needs with the high cost transport availability. The report areas in where the
communities are living in scattered way havent access at all for basic need. A9 road
construction just assists to the people who are traveling from Jaffna to other southern areas to
reduce their travailing time. Very less benefits is trickled down for inhabitants in Kilinochci
districts.
21http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTTRANSPORT/Resources/336291-1107880869673/chap_1.pdf
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Recommendation and conclusion
This study basically tried to analysis the socio economic impacts on road redevelopment.
Conventional ideologies on road development say that there is a strong positive linkagebetween road development and improvement in human well being. Here I tries t analyze the
relationship in context of new road development. So for this study, four locations in Kilinochchi
district were selected. But as a limitation of this study, it was realized that the road
development and improvement of human well being in this are as is still in primary state so it
was little difficult to analyze this relationship.
Out of this study, it was able to find out some new fact on relationship between these two
phenomenons. Thought roads are developed across the Kilinochchi district, travel time for
basic needs such as health, education, water, firewood and other subsistence task is still very
high. And also rich population in the area is getting maximum benefit out of road development
but for poor population is getting very minimal benefit.
Local market structure is shifted from production market to services oriented market with the
road development and expansion. And also, very less assistance drives from road development
for agriculture development in the area.
The transport problems that are faced by poor population are shifted from external to internal
because the access to basics needs gets much time. Road development will increase social
inequality drastically. It may be spread in the scale of male- female, rich- poor, remote people-
non remote people. New road development and expansion gets political influence. It, then
considers as a political capital. So road expansion and improvement is done as per the political
agenda and aspiration but not the communal needs and expectation.
In order to get maximum benefit out of road development and expansion, it should be a
integrated package. Otherwise, just by improving the road facility, it cant be improve the
human well being. It just improves the human mobility. So this study reveals that if the human
well being needs to be improved, the road development should be incorporated with other
basic service as well.