2.4.26-MISC-When Roads Expand but People Shrink

 

When Roads Expand but People Shrink: Public Policy, Power, and the Everyday Exclusion in India

Rahul Ramya

2 April 2026

     The most revealing way to understand the current direction of public policy in India is not through official documents, institutional reports, or academic theories, but through a simple, everyday experience: walking on a newly constructed road. Over the past decade, the Government of India has significantly expanded road infrastructure, with the total length of National Highways increasing from about 91,000 km in 2014 to over 1.45 lakh km by 2023, as reported by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. Annual highway construction has also accelerated, crossing 10,000 km per year in multiple recent years. This expansion is frequently presented as a marker of development, efficiency, and state capacity. Yet, the meaning of this development changes the moment one steps off a vehicle and attempts to inhabit the road as a pedestrian.

The road, despite being public infrastructure, does not belong equally to all. The pedestrian searches for a footpath and often finds none, or finds one that is discontinuous or encroached. The cyclist is pushed into high-speed traffic, navigating risk as a routine condition. The rickshaw puller and the e-rickshaw driver—who together form a substantial share of short-distance mobility in Indian towns and cities—are treated as obstructions rather than legitimate users. This contradiction is not incidental; it reflects a deeper policy orientation. While roads are expanding in length and quality, their usability is being hierarchically distributed. Infrastructure grows, but inclusion does not.

This mismatch becomes stark when examined through government data on road safety. According to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways’ “Road Accidents in India” report, the country recorded over 4.6 lakh road accidents and approximately 1.68 lakh deaths in 2022 alone. Of these, pedestrians accounted for nearly 20 percent of fatalities, while two-wheeler users constituted about 45 percent. When combined with cyclists and other vulnerable road users, these categories represent the majority of those who die on Indian roads. These are not marginal users; they are the dominant users of everyday mobility. Yet, the design priorities of road infrastructure do not reflect their centrality. The system is not failing at the edges; it is structurally misaligned with the realities of those who depend on it most.

To understand why this persists, one must look at how policy defines success. Contemporary road policy is driven by measurable indicators such as reduction in travel time, increase in average speed, and improvement in freight efficiency. Government reports frequently highlight reductions in logistics costs, aiming to bring them closer to global benchmarks of around 8 percent of GDP, compared to India’s estimated 13–14 percent. These are legitimate economic goals, but they privilege specific forms of mobility—long-distance, motorized, and commercial—while neglecting short-distance, non-motorized, and livelihood-oriented movement. The daily journeys of millions who walk, cycle, or rely on informal transport systems are not central to these metrics, and therefore remain peripheral in policy design.

This same logic, once noticed, begins to reveal itself across sectors, repeating with remarkable consistency. Consider education. Over the last two decades, India has made significant strides in expanding school infrastructure. According to Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE+) data, over 97 percent of habitations now have access to a primary school within one kilometer. School buildings, classrooms, toilets, and mid-day meal facilities have expanded substantially. Enrollment rates at the primary level exceed 95 percent. On paper, the system appears close to universalization. Yet, when one enters these classrooms, a different reality emerges. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) repeatedly shows that a large proportion of students in grade 5 cannot read a grade 2 text or perform basic arithmetic. The issue is no longer access; it is learning. Infrastructure has expanded, but cognitive development has not kept pace. The policy has succeeded in building schools, but not in ensuring that education actually happens within them.

A similar pattern unfolds in healthcare. India has increased the number of medical colleges, expanded hospital infrastructure, and launched large-scale insurance schemes such as Ayushman Bharat, which aims to cover over 50 crore individuals. Government data highlights rising institutional deliveries and expanding coverage. Yet, the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) reveals persistent gaps in nutrition, maternal health, and access to quality care. India continues to face a shortage of doctors, with doctor-population ratios in many states falling short of World Health Organization norms. Primary health centres often remain understaffed or under-equipped, pushing patients toward higher-level facilities or private providers. The system grows in scale, but bottlenecks remain at the point of actual care. As with roads, the structure exists, but its usability is uneven.

The same contradiction is visible in the celebrated rise of startups and the digital economy. India is now home to over 100 unicorns, and government initiatives such as Startup India have sought to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. Digital infrastructure—Aadhaar, UPI, mobile connectivity—has expanded rapidly, creating new economic opportunities. Yet, this growth has not translated into proportional employment generation. According to Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data, a significant share of the workforce remains engaged in informal employment, with limited job security and low wages. Many startups operate with lean workforces, emphasizing scalability and automation over labor absorption. The result is a paradox: high visibility of innovation alongside persistent underemployment. The system produces value, but not necessarily livelihoods at scale.

These examples are not isolated failures; they point to a structural pattern in policy design. Across roads, schools, hospitals, and economic systems, there is a consistent emphasis on expanding measurable infrastructure while underinvesting in the conditions that make that infrastructure meaningful. Roads are built without ensuring safety for the majority of users, schools are constructed without guaranteeing learning outcomes, hospitals are expanded without addressing primary care gaps, and startups are promoted without corresponding employment generation. In each case, policy achieves visible outputs but struggles with substantive outcomes.

This pattern is closely tied to the transformation in policy philosophy discussed earlier. When success is defined in terms of quantifiable targets, systems naturally prioritize what can be counted. Kilometers of roads, number of schools, hospital beds, number of startups—these are all measurable indicators that can be reported, compared, and showcased. In contrast, safety, learning, health quality, and employment dignity are harder to quantify and require deeper engagement with social realities. As a result, they receive less attention, not because they are unimportant, but because they are less amenable to rapid measurement.

The rise of technocratic policy education reinforces this bias. Policymakers trained in data-driven frameworks are more comfortable optimizing measurable variables than grappling with complex social dynamics. A road safety problem becomes a matter of enforcement and awareness rather than redesigning infrastructure for vulnerable users. A learning crisis becomes a question of assessment metrics rather than teacher training and classroom engagement. A healthcare gap becomes an issue of insurance coverage rather than strengthening primary care systems. The focus remains on improving the system within its existing parameters, rather than questioning whether those parameters are adequate.

At a deeper level, this reflects a reluctance to confront structural inequalities. Designing roads for pedestrians requires prioritizing those who do not own vehicles. Improving public education requires addressing disparities in teacher distribution and social background. Strengthening primary healthcare requires investing in underserved regions and populations. Generating employment requires rethinking growth models that prioritize capital over labor. These are not merely technical adjustments; they involve redistributing attention, resources, and power. In their absence, policy continues to operate within a framework that reproduces existing hierarchies.

The cumulative effect of these choices is a form of development that is both real and limited. India is building more than ever before—more roads, more schools, more hospitals, more digital platforms. These are significant achievements and should not be dismissed. However, the benefits of this expansion are unevenly distributed, and the underlying contradictions remain unresolved. The road is wider, but not safer for the pedestrian. The school is closer, but not more effective in teaching. The hospital is larger, but not more accessible at the primary level. The economy is more dynamic, but not more inclusive in generating livelihoods.

Over time, these contradictions risk becoming normalized, much like road accidents have. When systems consistently produce partial outcomes, expectations adjust accordingly. People learn to navigate around deficiencies—walking on the edge of roads, supplementing school education through private tuition, seeking healthcare through informal networks, piecing together livelihoods in uncertain labor markets. Adaptation becomes a survival strategy, but it also reduces pressure on the system to change fundamentally.

The initial observation about roads thus expands into a broader critique of public policy itself. It reveals a governance paradigm that is highly effective in producing visible, measurable outputs but less effective in ensuring that these outputs translate into equitable, lived improvements. It shows how development can advance in scale while remaining constrained in substance, and how policy can appear successful while leaving core social realities inadequately addressed.

If there is to be a meaningful transformation, it must begin by re-centering policy on lived experience rather than abstract metrics. This would require designing roads from the perspective of pedestrians and cyclists, not just vehicles; strengthening education from the standpoint of learning outcomes, not just enrollment; building healthcare systems around primary access, not just tertiary expansion; and shaping economic policy to generate broad-based employment, not just high-growth enterprises. Such a shift would not reject efficiency but would embed it within a broader framework of equity and inclusion.

Until then, the paradox will persist. India will continue to build, expand, and modernize, and these achievements will remain significant. But for a large section of its population, the everyday experience of this development will continue to be marked by partial access, constrained usability, and persistent risk. The expanding road, in this sense, remains both a symbol of progress and a reminder of its limits—a visible surface under which deeper questions of justice, inclusion, and lived reality continue to demand attention.