Why are roads in Bihar in a poor condition?

The reason for such bad conditions of road is mainly cronyism and corruption at many levels. Let me walk you through the each level of corruption:

1. At appraisal level, politicians make sure that roads are built in their constituencies, not where they are required.

2. At planning level, engineers make designs based on high quality materials. This increases the cost of road construction project.

3. Then tenders are given to favorable contractors, so that maximum bribes can be extracted. Bribes go to politicians and bureaucrats at every level, based on the predetermined share.

4. Contractors, therefore, use bad quality materials.

5. Number of labourers working in the project are less than specified in the documents. The documents of labourers are used, while he may be working outside of Bihar in informal sector, where his records are not maintained.

6. Sub-standard roads are approved by bribing the officials.

7. The local leaders or activists or groups also extract bribes, for not reporting the corruption.

So, the sector has been cartelised, making the quality of roads so much poor. Moreover, the focus is not to maintain and repair the existing roads, the focus is on making mega projects, where there are more chances of corruption. 

In practice, corruption actually lubricates the process, making it fast, as the officials are driven by the bribes. But in case of mega projects like road construction, it makes the process more inefficient and of poor quality because of many levels of corruption.
Often corruption is conceptualized at individual level, but it's also because of local sociol, political and institutional factors.

There can be some solutions like:

1. Role of voters: Electing politicians based on the promises they fulfill.

2. Role of society: society can keep checks on such practices, while at the same time inculcating good values in future generation.

3. Role of IAS officers: they can break this cartelisation if they are brave enough.

Presence/prevalence of Naxalism in Eastern part of India like in the states of Jharkhand, Bihar and Odisha can also be attributed to the overall low development of the region including the quality of roads.  

The Naxalites do not allow the local administration to carry on development works. For example, they do not let the government/administration to construct/maintain roads because if the village from which they are operating  gets connected to a main city/town via road, such connection will affect their operations , their pressure/influence on villagers will decrease and also their hiding abilities will weaken as better quality roads will enable the government to perform better patrolling/counter-operations. Same goes for other developmental works taken up by   Government/local administration like building of schools, hospitals and delivering of welfare schemes.

Roads in Eastern India are in bad condition bcz

1) Marxian perspective: No bourgeoisie elite will want an unawared poor proletariat mass to prosper fast by providing those with basics.

2) Capitalist perspective: No economic incentive to investers for developing good quality roads there as economically it's not much rewarding to connect resource poor regions on priority with mcdamised pakka roads ! "Railway h to bhut h!"

3) Political perspective: Jab log vote dharam jaati caste basis priorities pe karte h to fir infrastructure banwayega kon - "Vote note se milta h saab, road se nahi!"

4) Septuagenarian perspective: SAB K SAB CORRUPT H. UPAR SE LEKAR NICHE TAK. SABKO JUNTA KA KHOON OR PESA CHOOSNA H. KUCHH NHI KAR SKTE. YAHI UNKA BHAGYA H.

5) Administrative perspective: No economic and political incentives/rationality to prioritize LIMITED resources of the state on such infrastructure. Further people are politically unaware to demand such things vociferously,they accepted it as their fate. Law and order issues like Naxalism based thinking further creates distrust among stakeholders hampering development. Also Lack of capacity and willingness of Poor people of this area to pay for TOLL etc hampers PPP based Road infrastructure. Big Industrial hubs like north and south don't exist - only raw material supply thru railways - finished goods are produced and consumed in other regions - so no incentive to develop good roads. And yes 3rd tier LSG is rotten up to roots - decentralization of development has led to decentralisation of corruption and status quo. Baaki other factors like climate etc thoda bhut role play krte h. = Overall other than administration everyone everything else is at fault.

6) UPSC Ass-pirant perspective: Random Combination of above + some other hifi GOOD ENGLISH intellectual stuff I recently read in some TH article or Eco survey etc + time and speed limit constraints = MY MAINS ANSWER ! Or haaa "Baaki Roads or Law & order tabhi tak khraab hai mere area mein jab tak mein IAS IPS select hoke nahi jaata/jaati us area mein.. uske baad to dekhna tum !!" ;)

PS- Personal perspectives. Reality may be different !

Jai Hind ;)

In Bihar, a combination of all those perspectives are the reasons for bad condition of infrastructure. I have closely watched the political situation in my area. One thing I can tell you is that, there is no ideology like thing in Bihar's politics. In my constituency, Left had been elected for long, but still there was no any constructive work for poor. Cartelisation and Bourgeoisie mindset still existed in the left leaders. Proletariats are more practical at ground. They see opportunity in electing leaders of their caste. This has led to a situation of "Tragedy of commons".

Attached is a good read on Game theory and corruption.

AssurAntiC

I'm a proud Bihari. But at the same time we aren't proud of the Bihari songs and cinema currently in popular culture. We have rich culture and community values.

But we have experience of stereotyped by others. There are reasons too, like perceptions created by our previous generations and leaders in other states. Just as what Indians face in other countries.

सिर्फ हंगामा खड़ा करना मेरा मकसद नहीं,

मेरी कोशिश है कि ये सूरत बदलनी चाहिए।

1. Industries develop around the areas where there are raw materials readily available. Bihar being primarily an agricultural state, entrepreneurs don't think it as viable site.

But with the proper development of freight transport infrastructure, and cheap labour, this shortcoming can be overcome.

2. Industrial areas are mostly situated in coastal areas because India depends largely on export. So, if NW-1 is developed, Bihar can be best suitable for export related industries like textile sector, sugar mills, jute industries etc so much so that it can compete with Bangladesh and other East Asian countries.

3. Lastly, it all comes down to Behavioural economics. These range from law and order to labour unionism etc.

All the above points are valid. So as a young man, I had this impression that it is corruption that leads to poor roads in Bihar. Especially in Urban Areas. Interestingly, in adjoining states such as Jharkhand and Chattisgarh , the roads are comparatively better.

While working as a Prime Minister's Rural Development Fellow, I happened to raise this question to my DC. He did not deny that corruption undermines every development action, but being an former Engineer, he said.

The roads are made of Tar. This can bear lot of load, but does not survive water accumulation. If you see the Indo Gangetic plain it is a near perfect plane. Slightly sloping towards the Bay Of Bengal.

When we build roads, especially in urban areas, we have two disadvantages

1. Being plain areas, the water tends to accumulate on the roads, and stays there. This does not happen in Say Ranchi, where , despite heavy rainfall sometimes, the water simply disappears, because it being located on a plateau
2. The second big challenge is that land acquisition is one of the key obstructions in Bihar given two things   - fertile lands , which means that you can always grow something and eat off it - therefore everyone practices kitchen garden or subsistance farming ( does not happen in Jharkhand or Chhattisgarh, hence you will hear hunger death cases from them, but not from Bihar ) and second, the heavy population. 

The DC argued that we hardly get land for road construction, the question of land acquisition for extra land for creating drainage on the sides does not even arise. And therefore, annually water clogging would happen, destroy the roads and roads would be perpetually bad.  

This is one perspective, but we may not think of this in the first place, for many of us.

Due to the resource crunch (money+land), now two-laning is somehow being achieved while missing out on drainage system, side road etc. But one good thing is that - tracking system (OPMRC) for road quality is in place. Inspection drives are also being taken.