RAWALPINDI, May 5: The government needs at least Rs30 billion a year for at least five years for maintenance of roads at national and provincial levels, according to a new Asian Development Bank study.

The Punjab government alone needs Rs8 billion for its current upkeep. In Sindh, the only province with an operating computer-based road asset-management system, the maintenance backlog for the 8,700 kilometres of provincial roads is estimated to be Rs3.8 billion while the province’s total backlog is estimated to exceed Rs8 billion.

The NWFP needs Rs500 million a year for five years to eliminate the maintenance at district level, says the study.

It is significant that district road network has increased by around 70,000 kilometres over the past two decades.

There is, however, no consolidated data about how much funds are needed for road and bridge maintenance. But, judging from the current road conditions, it is apparent that funding for maintenance was not always a priority.

According to the study, insufficiency of funds for road repairs can be overcome through good maintenance planning and prioritising expenditure.

Tools for such planning exist, but require regular measurement of physical parameters and traffic volumes and the use of computer-based systems for data processing. The study pointed out that apart from the Sindh government, no road agency appeared to be enthusiastic about adopting modern data processing methods.

Currently, routine maintenance is undertaken on the basis of traditional ‘yardstick’ approach while funds are allocated on the basis of a set amount per kilometre multiplied by road length.

Highlighting unreliability of data, the report said that safety audits were not normally part of road work planning. For transport operations, spheres of responsibility are blurred and uncoordinated.

Highlighting corruption at all levels, the study said that it was prevalent in most tiers of road maintenance that led to increase in costs and sub-optimal selection of road alignment or improvement level.

The study suggested that corruption might eat up about 20 per cent of the total funds. The problem is exacerbated because of low wages, widening disparity between the rich and poor, bureaucratic hurdles and centralised and/or hierarchical decision making.