Amongst the roads surfaced roads are very important which provide all-weather link between different places and. hence, play significant role in economic development and prosperity. In India about 14, 48,629 km of roads belong to this category which is only 57.3 per cent of the total roads of thecountry.

India has an average of 44.07 km of sur­faced roads per 100 square km. of its area which is much lower if compared with various developed countries of the world (cf. Netherlands 312.38, Ja­pan 271.82 km, Germany 167.36 km, U.K. 146.24 km, USA 63.77 km, and Sri Lanka 62.59 km). Due to its large population-size the road-length per lakh of population is still lower (India 140.82 km, USA 2907 km, France 1545 km, Germany 967 km, Japan 971 km, Sri Lanka 328 km). Amongst the states Goa has the highest road-length per 100 sq. km of area (162, 24 km), followed by Kerala, Punjab, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. On the other hand Jammu and Kashmir records the smallest road-length (4.58 km) per 100 sq. km of area. As many as 15 states and I union territory has less length of surfaced roads per 100 sq. km of area than the national average.

There are 17 states and 7 union territories which have higher length of surface roads per lakh of population than the national average of 140.82 km. Here again higher value is noticed in sparsely populated states and union territories

Manipur, Tripura and Mizoram. Much of this region is hilly, forested and crises-crossed by rivers. Except Tripura, Assam and Nagaland the road-length per 100 sq km of area is less than 50 km. The connectiv­ity and accessibility are poor and many villages are still not connected through paved roads.