mobility verses access by h.m.manjula pushpakumara

7/29/2019 Mobility Verses Access by H.M.Manjula Pushpakumara

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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.

mobility verses access by h.m.manjula pushpakumara

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