COMMUNICATIONS

INTRODUCTION

REFERENCES ARE FOUND REGARDING ROUTES CONNECTING THE THEN BIG CITIES like Pratishthan or Avanti, Tagar or Sthanak, during the pre-Bauddh period. The caves at Ajanta, Ellora or Bhaje are considered to be constructed on these highways to facilitate the journeys of travellers. In later days, about 16th and 17th century A. D., the routes and roads were generally marked out either to link the forts or any pilgrim centres of considerable importance. When we come to still later period smooth and quick movement of military seems to be the chief aim behind the construction of railways and roads. This was especially visible during the British period of Indian History. The needs and conveniences of passengers were not taken into consideration

After the advent of Independence the main guiding principle behind the construction of any road or rail track was passengers' convenience and welfare of the travelling public. Other factors like joining of market places, covering economically prosperous villages, joining district headquarters with taluka towns, joining important towns to nearby railway stations and joining centres of pilgrimage and objects of interest are also taken into consideration.

In the latter part of the 18th century, the old Gazetteer mentions that, there were two principal routes above the Sahyadris, one, the Poona-Kolhapur and Karnatak route which ran by the little Bor pass in Poona district, the Salpa pass on the north-east of Goregaon, the Nhavi pass at south-east of Goregaon and then the other, the present Satara-Tasgaon road running through Tasgaon and Miraj or by Tasgaon and Masur to Karad.

The general nature of the roads and public traffic in the district was far from satisfactory in the 19th century. As the emphasis was laid mainly on self-sufficiency of village economy, means of communications by themselves never attracted particular, attention. The importance of roads and traffic connections was not felt necessary as they had not become an indispensable part of the economy, as they are now. There were a few tracks, euphemistically called roads. They were chiefly earthen tracks designed for bullock-carts or baggis to ply only in fair season. These roads, becoming rough and dry in summer and winter, were sufficient for the purposes of traffic and social intercourse. Communications along them were highly improbable during monsoon and one forced to travel in that duration was carried in a doli or a palanquin or on horseback. In 1885 [Compiled from the account of roads in Kolhapur Gazetteer, 1886, p. 328,], the district was fairly away from the roads which were generally feeders to trunk lines in the British and other native state territory leading to important trade centres. In Miraj taluka, the chief roads were the Athni-Chiplun, Sangli-Akli, Sangli-Uplavi and Bijapur-Pandharpur roads. The Athni-Chiplun was the highway running from Athni in Belgaum district to Chiplun in Ratnagiri district. Passing by Miraj and Sangli it joined the Poona-Belgaum trunk road at Peth in the Walwa taluka of Satara. The other roads were connecting towns like Kolhapur, Budhgaon, Kavalapur, Kumta, Kavathe Mahankal, Mangalvedha, Sangola, etc.

The political as well as the economic set-up changed at the turn of the century and was mainly responsible for the later development, namely, the transport facilities in the form of roads and railways. As political and economic peace prevailed for more than a century as a result of consolidation of a stable rule, the ideas regarding safety, security and travel had also changed while on the economic front appearance of new commodities in the market, rise in the standard of living, foreign goods flooding the local markets, increasing dependence on medical and monetary facilities available in urban sector-all these necessitated the development of roads, railways and other transport facilities. Villages no longer could maintain their old position of self-sufficient economic units and the socio-economic transactions between rural and urban sectors became unavoidable. Railways were laid, new roads constructed, old ones repaired and properly maintained and thus the network of these transport veins started functioning infusing new blood of economic prosperity in the life of the district. Roads were now considered not as a competition to railway but as complementary to railways for carrying goods and passengers.

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