Overview:

As per the definition and classification of road system adopted in Road Development Plan of India (1981-2000), rural roads are the tertiary road system which comprises of Other District Roads (ODR) and Village Roads (MOST, 1984). These roads serve as feeder roads to the main network and link villages with the nearest market centers, or any other village. Traffic volume on these roads is low, comprising mainly of slow moving vehicles like cycles and animal drawn vehicles and pedestrians who are generally cultivators of abutting land. There are other lower level roads also, such as paths and tracks, which serve the important functions in rural areas and are not covered under the above definition and classification of roads. These are farm roads and intra-village roads. The farm roads traverse the agricultural fields and are mainly unsurfaced linking agricultural farms with the main village. Intra-village roads connect the clusters of small size settlements in a village, known with different names in different.

All these types of road constitute the whole range of rural roads for all practical purposes in India. However, from network planning point of view rural road is an all weather road that connects a village with any other village, to the market centres, or to the primary and secondary road systems. This constitutes the Other District Roads and Village Roads as per the definition of Road Development Plan (1981-2001) of the country.