Central Road Research Institute
In the year 1950 the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) was started at New Delhi
1Or research in various aspect of highway engineering. It may be indicated that one of the
recommendations of Jayakar Committee report was to set up a central organisation Ior
research and dissemination of information.
The CRRI is one of the national laboratories of the Council of Scientific and Industrial
Research: the institute is mainly engaged in applied research and offers technical advice
to state governments and the industries on various problems concerning roads.
National Highway Act
In 1956 the National Highway Act was passed. The main features of the act are:
() the responsibility of development and maintenance of the national highway (NH) to
be provisionally taken by the central government.
(ii) the central government to be empowered to declare any other highway as NH or to
omit any of the existing national highways from the list.
Highway Research Board
The Highway Research Board of the Indian Roads Congress was set up in 1975 With a
is expected to act as a national body for co-ordination and promotion of highway
view to give proper direction and guidance to road research activities in India. T he board
Ihe Highway Research Board (HRB) has recommended suitable financial
research.
allocation of research by central and state governments and has chosen high prioriy
research schemes for being taken up first.
The objective of IRC Highway Research Board are :
(i) To ascertain the nature and extent of research required.
(i) To correlate research information from various organisations in India and abroad
with a view to exchange publications and information on roads.
(iin) To co-ordinate and conduct correlation services.
(iv) To collect and disseminate results on research
(V) To channelise consultative services
There are three technical committees of the HRB for (1) identification, monitoring and
research application (ii) road research evaluation and dissemination and (iii) bridge
research, evaluation and dissemination.
National Transport Policy Committee
The Government of India appointed the National Transport Policy Committee (NTPC)
in the year 1978 to prepare a comprehensive national transport policy for the country for
the next decade or so, keeping in view the objectives and priorities set out in the five year
plans. The NTPC report was made available in the year 1980 and many of the major
recommendations of this report have been accepted by the Government of India. Some of
the important recommendations of the NTPC report relate to the liberalisation of the
transport sector, inclusion of transport in the priority sector, optimal in-er-modal mix
between railway and road transport based on resource-cost consideration and energy
conservation. A number of suggestions were made on the road development, these
include the need to take into account the requirements of roads in rural, hilly and tribal
areas in the next perspective road development plans, strengthening of National Highway
system, increase in funds for the maintenance of roads and to connect all the villages with
all-weather low-cost roads within next twenty years. Separate recommendations were
also made for various factors connected with the development and growth of road
transport by the year 2001.
