Roads

This is a picture that I took while I was traveling to Ras Al Khaimah, one of the 7 emirates of UAE. I was traveling through a road which was diagonally opposite to this road and as u c in the picture, the road is going downwards. Because of the distance I was not able to make out as to where the road was leading to. All I could understand was that it was sloping downwards. If u carefully observe the picture, the road under scrutiny has been laid on red soil. It is typical desert sand, slippery and smooth.

However I am not writing this post to describe that road. What I want to highlight is the importance which the Government of the country has given to the development of roads. Roads are a very important infrastructure of any country. They connect cities across the country, enable the movement of goods and commodities and indirectly facilitate the growth of the economy. The quality of the roads in UAE is excellent. The entire stretch of the road from Abu Dhabi till we reached RAK had no damage and the journey was really smooth. There was no need for the driver to slow down for any kind of bumps or dumps on the road. What needs to mentioned here is that the national highways are more frequented by heavy trucks which would mean more chances of wear and tear. I personally feel that one of the biggest contributor to the growth of this middle east country is the presence of such well maintained roads.

Our country has a long way to go when it comes to the quality of the road. Though there are few very good highways, expressways in the country this proportion is very small. Not only should the road connectivity be increased, the maintenance of the existing roads needs to be proper. The Golden Quadrilateral project by the erstwhile BJP government was a right step in this direction. It aimed at connecting the 4 regions in through a series of roads. However due to political reasons, the project has been stalled. Such stalling of projects will not help the country in its progress at a time when it is poised to grow.

Anyways I hope that more projects like Golden Quadrilateral are conceived and implemented.