India: Rural Connectivity Investment Program - Tranche 1 | Lessons by Independent Evaluation, Asian Development Bank

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Lessons

Efficient and effective procurement and project and contract management are crucial to minimizing time and cost overruns.

At appraisal, this project was planned to be completed in about 31 months, but project outputs were considered completed only after 60.6 months. Key factors accounting for the delays included poor coordination among state departments for utility shifting; land acquisition issues; mandatory clearances; repeated bidding and multiple contracts; and weak capacities of consultants, resulting in poorly designed and costed road packages. Several state-specific factors, among these, a longer rainy season, non-availability of construction material at source, security issues, and cyclone Phailin in Odisha, also contributed to the implementation delays. While there was no increase in the total project cost, some of these factors led to cost overruns. The following measures can be adopted to avoid these issues in future projects (i) utilities should be identified and coordination between line departments should be established during the design phase; (ii) the size and number of packages to be awarded to a single contractor should be determined in close coordination with the project implementation units (PIUs) ; (iii) information should be made available on locally available construction materials; (iv) land acquisition for construction work and utility relocation, with necessary approvals, should be complete in all respects (v) costing of packages should be strictly based on on-site conditions to avoid rebids; (vi) basic design requirements should be strictly adhered to; and (vii) safeguard provisions should be included in the bill of quantities

Project Cycle Stage:

Preparation

Implementation

Inclusive road safety measures and a comprehensive maintenance action plan are essential to maximizing the benefits and ensuring the sustainability of road improvements.

Under this project, the scope of the road safety audits (RSAs) was limited to 10 sample roads. Therefore, road safety issues may have remained unaddressed for those that were not audited. In fact, the project completion review (PCR) mission observed inadequate road safety components in roads that fell outside the purview of RSAs. In addition, weak maintenance planning resulted in poor maintenance in some cases; and the involvement in just the construction phase of the village grievance redressal committees (GRCs), constituted as a social accountability mechanism for monitoring and oversight, has impacted community ownership, which in turn could affect the sustainability of assets. To address these road safety and maintenance issues, the PCR recommends that (i) each rural road network management unit (RRNMU) prepare a comprehensive action plan for road maintenance; (ii) community participation be fostered to create ownership and effectively mitigate issues related to misuse and damage, and the village GRCs continue their oversight role during the maintenance phase; (iii) there be compulsory RSAs for all the roads prior to the approval of the DPRs; (iv) rural self-government panchayati raj institutions and village GRC members be involved in these audits; and (v) road safety checklists be prepared to guide community-led audit.

Project Cycle Stage:

Preparation

Implementation

Completion and Evaluation

Quality monitoring and reporting requires adequate staff resources and implementation mechanisms.

The lack of a dedicated project management unit at the National Rural Infrastructure Development Agency, the interface between ADB and the program state implementing agencies, had impacted project reporting. At the grassroots level, the lack of involvement of the village GRCs in the road maintenance phase limited the scope of their monitoring and oversight functions, aggravating the constraints due to the lack of centralized monitoring and the weak capacity of GRC members. Improved monitoring could be facilitated in future projects in the Rural Connectivity Investment Program (RCIP) by: (i) creating a project management team at the national level that would assist the executing agency (EA) with real-time monitoring of physical and financial progress in each program state and ensure consistent data collation, quality reporting, and timely mitigation of issues; (ii) strengthening the village GRCs to enhance their role in monitoring; and (iii) establishing a bottom-up complaint redress system to monitor the GRC functions. A standard reporting template for operational aspects related to the project assets and for annual reports should also be developed.

Project Cycle Stage:

Implementation

Overstretching staff time and capacity impacts the efficiency and sustainability of project institutions.

The RRNMUs and rural connectivity training and research centers (RCTRCs) piloted under this project have strengthened the technical and management capacities of key project institutions as well as consultants, contractors, and communities. They have also promoted the sustainable maintenance and management of the road assets. However, the lack of dedicated human resources has overstretched the time of government staff with additional responsibility to manage these establishments. As this affects institutional efficiency and sustainability, future RCIP projects should address the need for dedicated personnel for these innovative agencies.

Project Cycle Stage:

Implementation

Background

In December 2000, the government of India launched the Prime Minister’s Rural Roads Program (PMGSY) as a centrally sponsored scheme to provide all-weather access to unconnected eligible rural habitations. By improving the connectivity of these habitations, the PMGSY aims to accelerate agricultural and rural economic growth and thereby reduce poverty faster and in a more inclusive manner. The program also endeavors to establish uniform technical and management standards and facilitate state-level rural road policy development to support the sustainable management of the rural roads network.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB), at government’s request, has supported PMGSY implementation initially through the $400 million Rural Roads Sector I Project, completed in June 2009; then through the $750 million Rural Roads Sector II Investment Program, completed in June 2014; and the ongoing $800 million Rural Connectivity Investment Program (RCIP), a multitranche financing facility (MFF) comprising three tranches, approved in July 2012.

The RCIP is designed to support the construction and upgrading to all-weather standard of 9,000 kilometers (km) of rural roads, benefiting 4,200 habitations in the states of Assam, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and West Bengal. Its envisaged long-term impact is reduced poverty and deprivation and inclusive socioeconomic development. Its expected outcome is improved and sustainable connectivity of rural communities to markets, district headquarters, and other centers of economic activity. Its six planned outputs combine to address road infrastructure development, maintenance, and institutional strengthening.

This report covers project 1 of the RCIP, approved in May 2012 for a $252 million loan that became effective in June 2013. The project’s intended outputs were (i) selected priority rural roads are constructed to all-weather standard; (ii) design quality of RCIP roads is improved; (iii) maintenance of RCIP roads is improved and sustainable; (iv) road safety measures are incorporated into the life cycle of RCIP roads; (v) the qualifications and skills of PMGSY engineers, technicians, site supervisors, staff of rural self-government panchayati raj institutions (PRI), design consultants, and contractors in the program states are improved and maintained; and (vi) effective project management is provided.

The project delivered all its planned outputs and achieved or overachieved its performance targets. Against a target of 3,461 km, 3,782 km of priority rural roads were constructed, benefiting 1,785 rural habitations, compared to a target of 1,600 habitations. All civil works contracts incorporated a 5-year performance-based maintenance contract. The completed roads were compliant to a standardized detailed project report (DPR) template, although in some cases, DPR provisions for customized planning, design, and costing were not fully incorporated in road designs and estimates. The PMGSY quality control norms and checklists were strictly adhered to, and 100% of affected communities were consulted in the design process.

A rural road network management unit (RRNMU) was established in each program state on a pilot basis. These RRNMUs supervised the operation and maintenance of the project roads, 44% of the maintenance aspect of which was undertaken by women, surpassing the 33% target. The participation of PRIs and village grievance redressal committees was however visibly lacking. Based on lessons from prior rural road projects, road safety audits (RSAs) and a community awareness component were incorporated in the project design. RSA accomplishment exceeded the target set at 10% of the project roads; however, the scope of enhanced road safety measures was limited to the 10% sample roads.

A rural connectivity training and research center (RCTRC), equipped with state-of-the-art research equipment and testing laboratories, was established in each program state, also on a pilot basis. These RCTRCs strengthened the capacities of state rural roads development agencies (SRRDAs) as well as those of consultants and contractors in road network design, construction, management, and maintenance. The RCTRC in Madhya Pradesh initiated a self-sustaining business model by using its laboratory testing and training facilities for commercial purposes. As of October 2019, the facility had grossed a net profit of $0.2 million. RCTRCs in the other program states are also taking steps to achieve financial sustainability.

Project innovations, in addition to the RCTRCs and the use of a standard DPR format that has minimized omissions and errors in the bill of quantity process, have also included the adoption of environment-friendly and cost-effective practices such as the use of cold mix bitumen and plastic waste in pavement construction. Delivery of all the planned outputs, in many cases exceeding targets, has enabled the project to achieve its expected outcomes, although state-specific implementation delays and differences in achievements have been experienced. For example, the road network constructed/rehabilitated in Assam and Madhya Pradesh was 25% more in length than envisaged, while it was short by 7% in Odisha and 11% in West Bengal.

Because of improved road conditions, average travel speed on the project roads increased from 10–15 km per hour to about 25–30 km per hour. This has supported a better quality of life for rural communities through (i) increased incomes for households engaged in farming, trading, transport, and other services; (ii) improved access to health facilities; and (iii) improved access to quality education and other development services. The project has also influenced the expansion and growth of women-centered traditional occupations and empowered women groups to demand increased value on products developed by them.

The RCIP was executed by the Ministry of Rural Development (MORD). The governments of the program states created their own project implementation units to take charge of day-to-day project activities.

Project Information

Project Name:

Rural Connectivity Investment Program - Tranche 1

Report Date:

June, 2020

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