"Two or three years moving along Gafurov-Khujand trunkline in a car I was full of joy; the road being just asphalted. My heart was overwhelmed with a forgotten sense of pride for the motherland, our people also can do jobs when they do want it, and it is no worse than the one done by foreign masters… However, my joy didn't last long… My old vehicle which under normal roads might have served about ten years more as a minimum, now stands in the garage having not endured the struggle with out tracks and their tussocks and bumps, with thousands of pits and hollows".
These are the lines from the letter of our reader R. Mamadjonov published in the newspaper almost half a year ago. But in vain did the editorial office expect that the officials responsible for maintenance of roads and control over them would respond. Having got convinced that there would be no reaction we decided to find an answer to the question ourselves.

Arteries Will soon Pass on
It is very difficult to evaluate the importance of roads for Tojikiston. For the republic 93% of whose territory is occupied with mountains this is the primary channel of communications between the regions. The President of the country Emomali Rahmonov compared them with "blood-vessels". But today's realias promise their complete worthlessness in the near future. As the experts of the roads household recognize, the situation is severe to such an extent that if not to take urgent measures the process may become irrevocable and you will need scores of years to rectify the state of things. On the territory of Northern Tojikiston the stretch of the auroroads being in common usage constitutes 3356 km; out of this number 1059 km are of republican significance and 2297 km refer to the category of regional (viloyat) importance. The road communications available for today were in their major part built the last decade. At the present time 95% of autoroads in Sughd viloyat need renovation.
What has it reduced to? Freight streams have diminished, automobiles have been standing idle due to technical wrecks, time and money are lost.

And where is Money?
It is lack of finances that is considered to be the main reason of all afflictions by specialists. Quoting the employee of "Khujandroh" - Central Governance Office of Road Household - T. Mukhtorov, the norm of monetary expenses for repairs and maintenance of 1 km of a road constitutes 14200 somoni (5461.5$). In fact, 242 somoni were meted out for the current year. As a result of it, today there is practically no trunkline in the region, which would respond to international requirements.
As the chief of "Khujandroh" Nasim Bobojonov regards, the damage delivered by natural cataclysms exceeds the expenses allotted for road repairs. Thus, if this year 813 thousand somoni were meted out for the maintenance of trunklines the damage delivered by the elements exceeded 3 million somoni. Before 1996 there was the "Road Fund" at whose cost the Governance office might operatively solve any problem, which leaped into existence. Enterprises and organizations of the viloyat transferred resources to the Fund, every Governance office on road exploitation (REGO) has its own current account to which the latters entered; and now enterprises and organizations deduce 2.7% of road tax in favor of tax inspection, but we don't see this money. And according to exploratory calculations about 30 million somoni are accumulated for a year.
The assigned resources are practically "consumed" by the measures aimed at the removal of the harm caused by elemental disasters - slides and mudstone lavas.
In the telephone talk the general director of "Sorbon" JSC Abduahad Sharipov reported that technical state of auto vehicles depended on the state of roads. In previous years 50% of receipts into the road fund remained at the disposal of the viloyat that afforded to exercise, if not a capital repair, but, at least, that one which was in accordance with the requirements when all pits, hollows and rugged places were removed. To this one can add one more thing - every recurrent leap of prices for public auto transport is associated, first of all, by the leaders of ATE with an urgency of acquiring spare parts; the prices for the latters going up from day to day. And as it is clear from the aforesaid, a term of spare parts exploitation and technical state of vehicles are directly connected with the state of roads. I.e. the worse the roads the oftener a need in spare parts replacement springs up, and sequentially - the payment for passenger conveyance will be heightening. You se, not only the benefit of transport owners depends on the state of roads but that one of ours - me and you - either.
The opinion of one of the officials also has a right for existence, we don't call him by name here due to some considerations: "good or bad, still we can be using our roads, now it's not the matter of emergency. Don't we have any other problems being more important for the present moment? Low living standard of population, the problems of health service, unemployment, economy and agriculture… First of all, one must lower poverty level, give food to the people!" Such arguments are not objected easily.
And nevertheless, the researches of the experts from the World Bank in the domain of road household manifested that in case from 300 to 10000 automobiles move along a road round-the-clock; on average a state has a profit from each dollar deposited into repairs and maintenance of roads vacillating in the range of 1.4-44.8 dollars of net gain. In other explorations of WB they present the fact that correspondence of roads to world standards of traffic safety promotes economy growth, education and health of a nation.

"Road Fund" Is it Universal Panacea?
As experts consider, the problem can be solved only if the branch is financed of full value. Thi opinion is reflected both in the "Appeal of the Workers of the Sphere of Common Usage of Autoroads Repairs and Maintenance Being in Republican Importance to Deputies of RT Majlisi Oli Majlisi Namoyandagon". Here they dwell on the reinstatement of the "Road Fund" formed yet in 1994. RT Law on "Road Fund" adopted on December 27, 1993 laid out the law-grounds of the creation of this fund, sources of means and employment of the fund. In particular, it runs that "the resources of RT road fund have a focused assignment being not liable to withdrawal or expenses for the needs unrelated with the maintenance and development of common usage auto roads and the management of the road household". After the adoption of the law capital deposits into the sphere became satisfactory and there followed an obvious development of the branch, which reached its full swing. But, unfortunately, the law in question had been functioning for 2 years only, and in April 1996 resolution #187 readdressed a realization of the given Law on the Ministry of finances. In the outcome assignations reduced steeply and the branch was tending to decline. The resources meted out now for the maintenance of roads are almost 70 times less in comparison with 1994-1996. In their appeal to people's elects the leaders of the road households of the republic drew attention to the number of other problems as well - deficiency of specialists (bulldozer driver, grader driver); the majority having left the republic; low wages (13-14 somoni); hereby, the peculiarities of the sphere demand that people changed in this work were out-of-doors all year round - both in winter frost and in summer heat - road technique has worn out for long being unfit; for the last years not a single unit of road technique was acquired and the terms of exploitation have ensued long ago. Thus, only in Sughd viloyat over 85% of road-building technique and mechanisms have been out of date. In chapter 3, article 20 of RT Law "On Automobile Roads and Road Activity" adopted in summer of the current year it runs: "… financing of automobile roads should be carried out in the amounts providing traffic safety and undamaged state of roads". In application to our roads traffic safety is hardly imaginable. In this connection the statistics of RTAs (road traffic accident) occurred through the technical state of roads is rather precarious. Such statistics is simply not registered, as according to VSAI information not a single road traffic accident is marked to have happened because of the state of the road. The next fact is worth mentioning - with the collapse of the USSR, which had entailed custom's barricades with neighboring states the passing of powerful freight auto transport along the viloyat roads increased thrice. If to follow logical judgments, assignations into the branch should not be curtailed 10 times, but, on the contrary, multiply proportionally as the pressure exerted upon the roads is intensified. It was mentioned above that the major part of the resources aimed at building, repairs and maintenance of roads is spent for obviation of the damage caused by the elements in reference to the roads. Reasoning on this theme the chief expert of the Governance office on transport, communication and road household under Sughd viloyat Hukumat T. Ashurov remarked that "due to well-known circumstances on the errand of RT president one ought to resume all year round traffic through the Shahristan overpass, as it is the only road which connect the North and the South of the republic being of strategic importance. Taking into consideration the factor of people's safety a detour route through Samarkand viloyat of RU, the Kitob overpass, was used principally. And now we have to seek for alternative solutions".
Such alternative solution was a continuation of Anzob tunnel construction begun and suspended in the Soviet period. According to preliminary plans the construction of the tunnel was to be terminated to 2007. For the time being one should somehow maintain roads and for this, as the majority of experts and leaders of all ranks consider, the tax exacted from users of common roads must be returned to the situation before 1996. As it is accentuated in the appeal of the road household workers, it is necessary to transfer the powers of a realizator of the Law form the Ministry of finances to the Ministry of transport and to regenerate the "Road Fund".
Let us be realists, even if we regenerate the Road fund we shall be hardly able to repair our roads on a high standard. However, experts regard that it is the only way which will help solve the problem.