Sindh Rural Roads Improvement Project

Roads are the predominant mode of transport in the country, carrying 91pc of passenger traffic in passenger-kilometers and 96pc of freight traffic in ton-kilometers. Sindh follows the same pattern and has a road network of 25,737km, including 1,365km of national highways and 2,830km of provincial highways.

The density of Sindh’s road network is lower than the national road density of 0.33km per square kilometer. The low road density and poor road conditions have constrained the development of the provincial economy.

Much of the road network is spread densely along the banks of the Indus and its major irrigation and drainage canals. Rural road connectivity is poor in the south-eastern districts of the province and along the coast. The extensive arid and desert regions in the west and east of the province have few all-weather engineered roads.

The new project will involve the rehabilitation and upgradation of some major inter-district connections to the standard width of 7.3m, along with appropriate drainage and safety facilities, including institutional strengthening, road safety and road asset management improvement components.

Sindh’s provincial highways, which handle traffic of about 8,000 vehicles daily, connect the province’s administrative and commercial centers with district headquarters and market towns.

Think Transportation undergoes traffic study to estimate travel demand on Sindh Intercity and rural highway network. For this assignment, Think Transportation performed traffic count survey and origin destination interview survey on number of rural and intercity highways of following cities: Tando Adam, Sanghar, Ghotki, Dadu, Larkana, Jacobabad, Shikarpur, Mithi, Matiari, Thul, Mirpur, Mirpur Mathelo, Matheli, Rato Dero and other cities. These information is then used in preparing improvement plan and construction priorities for rural roads of Sindh Province.