The means of efficient transportation are an indispensable component of modern civilization. The economic development of a country depends largely on an efficient and adequate system of transport. They form a very important class of instrumental wealth.
Most of the Transport and Communication system in India is mostly owned by corporate bodies and the state, and rarely by single individuals. They help in the creation of what we call place utilities in production.
No country in the world today can build up its prosperity unless it has a highly developed system of communication and transport.
Development of an efficient transport system is a pre-condition of our economic development. Transportation and Communication have an important bearing on the development of exchange and markets. They:
- increase land values,
- break economic circles, and thus tend to equalize prices,
- make labor more mobile,
- enable a greater division of labor among different industries and countries,
- determine the geographical distribution of industries,
- break economic circles, and thus tend to equalize prices,
- play a very important part in relieving distress in the famine-stricken areas by rapid distribution of food-stuffs,
- effectiveness of administration and national defense are inseparably connected with the advancement of transport system.
The fact is, hardly anything can be produced on a large scale without the participation of some transportation agent.
Efficient means of transport are a necessary accompaniment of the modern economic organization, in which production takes place on a large scale, raw materials, coal, etc., come from distant places, and the commodities produced sometimes required to be distributed not only in different parts of the same country, but over the whole surface of the globe. Cheap carriage widens market for the sale of commodities.
Industrial and commercial activities can be carried on efficiently only if the communication system is highly modernized. However, transport would not develop, unless there is a demand for an agency for the transit of goods. Thus, industrial and transport developments have to go side by side. The dependence is mutual and not one-sided. It is with the help of these modern rapid means of communication and transportation that our big cities have been growing in size, for they make the inflow of the requirements of life sure.
Facile transportation is the key to modern industrial organization, and enables the development of the resources of a country. It is for these reason that every progressive country in the world gives so much importance to it. It is all the more important, in a country like India with vast undeveloped areas and a huge population.