Transport and Communications of Karnataka

Karnataka > Transport and Communications of Karnataka

The turn of 19th century saw the beginning of all-round development of road network throughout the State. From 1930 onwards the roads under Bombay Presidency were classified as Class I, Class II-A. II-B and Class III, depending on the importance of such roads. The Chiplun (Ratnagiri dist.)-Hyderabad Class I Road was passing through Bijapur district. Another Class I road originating from Sholapur was connecting Bijapur with Hubli. The most important link in the northern circle of the Bombay Presidency, was Pune-Bangalore road. In the days of Commissioner Cubbon, he saw to it that Bangalore, the capital of Mysore State was connected with all district headquarters and by the time he left office (1861), the State had 2,555 km of new roads and 309 bridges.

The road communication system in the Old Mysore State was very good in the pre-independence period. Roads were classified as State Fund Roads and District Fund Roads for the purpose of construction and maintenance. In contrast, till 1943, there was no systematic classification of roads in other parts of the country. Later according to the Nagpur Plan in 1943, the roads were classified into National Highways, State Highways, Major District Roads, Other District Roads and Village Roads. In 1951, the road length in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi district was about 2,000 km. At the time of the merger of Bellary with the Old Mysore State in 1953, the length of the roads was 1.218 km and in 1956, the integrated State had 43,182 km road length, of which 26,423 km was from old Mysore and the share of Bombay-Karnataka and Hyderabad-Karnataka region was 11,260 and 2,478 km respectively. The districts of Dakshina Kannada (including Udupi district) and Kodagu had a road length of 2.109 and 912 km, respectively.

Development of Roads

In 1956, the road length including that of the integrated areas in the State was 43,182 km. The road development in Bidar, Gulbarga, Bellary, Raichur and Koppal was very poor. Special attention was paid to the development of roads in these areas during various Five Year Plans. From 1956 to 1978, about 6,059 km new road length was added and 21,854 km existing roads were improved. During the same period, 16,344 km road length was asphalted. For providing accessibility to the villages, about 30,543 km. rural roads were formed and 460 bridges were constructed.

For the benefit of the rural population in the State, the Rural Communication Programme was launched in 1959-60. Its objective was to provide all-weather roads to important villages, construction of missing links and construction of cross drainages (culverts) with a linear water way of more than 20 feet on P.W.D. roads.

During the Chief Engineers' Conference, a road development programme for twenty years (1961-1981) was chalked out. This plan envisaged improvements to the existing roads or upgrading or new construction of additional roads. The Public Works Department undertook a survey in 1970-71, to ascertain the number of villages connected by all-weather roads or any type of roads. This survey revealed that out of 26,286 inhabited villages, 10,299 villages were connected by metalled and all-weather roads, 9,865 villages were connected by unmetalled roads and the remaining 6, 122 villages were not connected by any roads.

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