The Rural Roads Sector III Project (RRS-III) was a component of the Prime Minister’s Rural Road Program.  The  objective of the program was to connect all habitations in India with more than 500 people (250 people in hill areas) by all-weather roads. RRS-III included the construction of approximately 15,000km of all-weather roads to provide connectivity, together with support for institutional strengthening and capacity building. SMEC’s services included: refinement of the study design, review of project preparation and implementation arrangements, review of institutional and contract arrangements and responsibilities for maintenance of rural roads, assessment of the capacity of the implementation agencies at the central, state and district levels, development of a set of road safety measures, preparation of a feasibility study on a sample of 500km of project roads, update of the design and monitoring framework, provision of on-the-job training and knowledge transfer to client staff.