Roads and Road Transport in India: An Environmental and Economic History

India is Australia's fifth largest trading partner, a key market for its fossil fuels, and a strategic partner in the Indo-Pacific Quad. Building roads and registering motor vehicles at an unprecedented pace, India is also attempting an ambitious transition to alternative energy sources. India's experiences are instructive for Australia, which confronts similar challenges, albeit on a smaller scale, of reconciling infrastructure development and growing motor vehicle usage alongside transitioning to alternative energy. Combining ethnography on roads, archival research, statistical analysis and extensive readings of industry and government publications, this project will provide an historical examination of road building and transportation in India. It will uncover the drivers of increased energy demand and provide new understandings of the potential environmental impacts for future infras