Facility based rural road planning using GIS

Abstract

Rural Roads plays an vital role in the development of any emergent country. In India rural roads shares more than 85% of the road network of the country. Keeping in view the fact that connectivity has a catalytic effect on the economic and social development and poverty alleviation in rural areas, the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India launched a mega rural roads development programme in 2000, popularly known as Pradhan Mantri Gram SadakYojana (PMGSY) to improve connectivity in Indian villages. After implementation of this project rural road network increases rapidly and main challenges is selection of road link for upgradation. Present paper focuses on the development of a planning model for upgradation of rural roads keeping Pradhan Mantry Gram Sadak Yoyna (PMGSY) program as the base of this model. Database for the PMGSY roads of Nellikudur Mandal of Warangal district in Telangana state is prepared which includes data like village data, road network & travel time. In this study rural road planning methodology based on the facility index concept is presented. Geographical information system (GIS) is used to prepare spatial database of the available facilities. Twelve parameters, which include the education facility, medical facility, transportation and communication facilities and market facilities have been considered and score of each facility is assigned by spatial analysis of each facility. The objective of the study is to find village facility index by two different approach, habitation-coverage approach and population-coverage approach based upon that, prioritization of road link has done. Buffer analysis tool is used for spatial analysis of each infrastructure facility and maximum coverage distance were determined. Score of each facility depends upon maximum coverage distance of each facility. Village facility indices comprise of education, medical, transportation and communication and market. Population, village facility index and travel time have been used for finding weightage of road link. The prioritization of the link was carried out on the basis of weightage and Pavement Condition Index (PCI) of the links. This will be helpful to government official in decision making for upgradation of rural road.