Landlocked Bihar, in the middle of India’s Gangetic plain region, is one of the country’s poorest, most populated, and economically backward states. Its road network, during project appraisal in 2008, was poor in terms of coverage and condition, and strengthening it to support the state’s economic development was a high priority.
At the request of the government of India, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a loan of $420 million for the Bihar State Highways Project in September 2008. The project’s anticipated impact was increased economic growth in Bihar, and its intended outcome was enhanced road transport efficiency and safety. Its planned outputs were (i) improved state roads and (ii) strengthened sector management.
Against a target of 820 kilometers (km), 825.14 km of state highways in 9 road sections were rehabilitated and widened to two lanes. The highways were upgraded to an international roughness index of between 3 and 4, better than the index of 5 anticipated at appraisal. Existing bridges were strengthened, and new ones were built. New cross-drainage structures were also constructed.
For output 2, loan provisions for equipment to enhance sector capacity for quality control, survey and design, and control of overloading and vehicle emissions were cancelled as the Bihar state government’s Road Construction Department (RCD) decided to mobilize, from its own resources, all the equipment requirements. Nevertheless, an associated technical assistance allowed the project to contribute substantially to the institutional strengthening of the road transport sector in Bihar through trainings and knowledge support for the formulation of state road sector legislation and policies and the enhancement of business processes.
Importantly, the project’s adoption of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) contract templates, a first for the road construction sector in Bihar, exposed the state road agencies to international best practices in procurement and contract management. The knowledge gained by the RCD and the Bihar State Road Development Corporation (BSRDC) from this experience can support improvements in the benchmarks and performance of the local road construction industry.
Successful delivery of the planned outputs enabled the attainment of the project’s intended outcome. Consequently, average vehicle travel time and vehicle operating costs were reduced by 55% and 37%, respectively; car traffic grew by 8.4%; average vehicle speed rose from 30–35 km/hour before the project to 60–80 km/hour after the project; and accidents rate and fatalities declined by about 23% and 4.4%, respectively, from 2011 to 2016.
While enhancing the poor’s access to social services, jobs, and markets, the much-improved road network also helped Bihar’s economy to grow faster during the recent decade. The state gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 9.3% annually in 2008−2012. Road sector contribution to the GDP rose to 4.3% in 2015 from 1.7% in 2006. Per capita income grew by 8.3% per annum in 2008−2012.
The project was executed by the state government of Bihar through the RCD. A project management unit, initially under the RCD but later transferred to the BSRDC, an RCD subsidiary, oversaw the day-to-day project implementation.
