Ongoing research on tourism and infrastructure development in Nepal and China.

A Brief History of Road Development in Nepal

                                                                                                                                                                                        
On March 21, 1770, King Prithvi Narayan Shah declared Kathmandu the capital of Nepal. From that time until 1927, the only way in and out of the Kathmandu Valley was on trails by foot or animal. Transport of goods was done either by human porterage or on the backs of mules or ponies. Starting in 1924 a plan was initiated to connect Kathmandu to India on its southern border by three interconnected transportation systems; ropeway (Figures A.1) from Kathmandu to Dhursing, roadway from Dhursing to Amlekhgunj, and railway from Amlekhgunj to Raxaul on the Nepal-India border.

Figure A.1 Building plans for a ropeway in Nepal (http://practicalaction.org/aerial-ropeway-1)

Ropeways are one of the main ways Nepalis cross rivers and transport loads in mountainous areas (Figure A.2).

 

Figure A.2 Ropeways in Nepal (clockwise starting left: http://www.ekantipur.com, http://www.nepalitimes.com.np/issue/2010/02/26/Nation/16839, http://www.nepalitimes.com.np/issue/2010/02/26/Nation/16839, http://www.allvoices.com)

The first all-weather gravel round outside the Kathmandu Valley was constructed in 1929 and was only 42 km long (Shrestha 1980). There seems to be some debate over when the first automobile arrived in Kathmandu but until the 1950’s, they were all carried over the hills and into the Kathmandu Valley on the backs of porters (Figures A.3 and A.4).Figure A.3 Porters carrying a car over the last ridge into Kathmandu. (http://visitnepal-yogesh.blogspot.com/2012/02/100-years-ago-in-nepal.html)Figure A.4 Porters carrying a car across a river heading to Kathmandu (Volkmar Wentzel http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/exploration/postcard06.html).

One source cites 1916 (Bajracharya et al. 2006) which coincides with the era of the oldest car in Nepal’s National Museum (Figure A.5), however it is doubtful there was any road to drive it on then. Figure A.5 Oldest in car Nepal in Nepal’s National Museum (http://www.gonomad.com/features/0803/nepal-trekking.html)

 In 1934, another car arrived in Kathmandu for the exclusive use of King Tribhuvan on the one and only existing road in the Kathmandu Valley (SDC 2008). Nonetheless, before 1950 motorable roads in Nepal were virtually non- existent (Paudyal 1998). In 1949, air links were established between Kathmandu and India but it was not until 1956 that Kathmandu had a road usable by trucks that linked to the existing road in the flat Terai area connecting Kathmandu to the railhead and India. Consequently, for almost 30 years, from 1927 until the completion of this section of road, the only way to transport goods into or out of the Kathmandu Valley was by the ropeway, human porter, or animal (Shrestha 1980). This is highlighted by the fact  that  until 1956 there was only approximately 600 km of roads in and around the few main cities of Nepal and more than half were fair weather only roads (Shrestha cited in Paudyal 1998). In 1961, a section of road was completed from Amlekhgunj to Raxaul making the road link from India to Kathmandu complete (Shrestha 1980).

The cars that did make it into Nepal before roads were intended for royalty and the upper class elites who used them in a very limited area of Kathmandu (Shrestha 1980). The presence of a Ford dealer in Lazimpath (Figure A.6), Kathmandu in the 1930’s speaks to the wealth of the royal family and their upper class friends.Figure A.6 The caption reads, “Cars for the upper class the authorized Ford dealer in Lazimpath probably in the 1930s. Cars were carried over the mountain trails on bamboo cross-poles by teams of 64 porters” (http://meropost.com/view/post:6727)

While many different factors were involved in the overall plan to connect the capital of Nepal in the Kathmandu Valley to the Indian order, a distance of only 115 km, one factor that cannot be ignored is the difficulty and expense of building roads in mountainous areas. Both the road and rail sections of the links in the flat Terai area were complete by 1927, but it was another 30 years before there was a road connecting those links through the mountainous terrain and over the pass into the Kathmandu Valley. This was the first road of national importance completed in Nepal as it directly connected the two major economic centers, the Kathmandu Valley and Raxaul and adjoining areas on the India border (Shrestha 1980). The same year the link was completed with India in the south plans were being made to connect Kathmandu with China in the north. In 1961, King Mahendra signed an agreement with the Chinese government in Peking to construct a road from Kathmandu to the Chinese border in Tibet at Kodari. The 114 km road was completed in 1966 and was quite controversial at the time because of the political implications of Kathmandu being connected by road to both India and China (Raj 1978).

Around the same time, to avoid having to cross into India, plans were made for an east–west transportation road network within Nepal. India, not wanting to lose its advantage from the existing road system, showed no interest in helping build the road until China began building a portion of it, at which point India agreed to take over building the remaining sections of it (Shaha cited in Blaikie et al. 1976). It has been suggested that all three of these roads, the first major roads in Nepal, received aid from India and China for strategic reasons (Shaha cited in Blaikie et al. 1976; Raj 1978) rather than purely as economic development aid. This an observation also made by Kreutzman (2000) concerning other road building in mountainous areas of Asia during the same period. The importance of road building from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s is evident from the amount spent on road construction, which was greater than the total for all other projects (Blaikie et al. 1976). Over a twenty year period from 1956 when the First Five Year Plan was initiated to 1976 during the Fifth Five Year Plan, road length had expanded from 625 km (0.40 km per 100. km²) to 4136 km (<2.20 km per km²) (HMGN/MWT/DOR 1985; GON/MPPW/DOR 2008b) and effectively produced a north-south and east-west road network.

Nonetheless, accessibility for the average rural Nepali was still very limited especially in the hills and mountainous areas. The east-west road corridor was restricted to the flat Terai area in the south and the north-south corridor only ran through the Kathmandu area in the east. During the 1980-90s, the government targeted minimum transport facilities to rural areas as a priority giving grants to local governing bodies at the district and village level as one strategy to help attain this goal. However, by the end of the 1990s, 20 out of 75 districts still lacked connection by vehicle roads (Paudyal 1998). As of 2007, there was almost 19000 km of roads (12.79 km per 100 .km²) but only 9399 km of that total is considered part of the Strategic Road Network (SRN), the remainder being local roads. Of the total SRN roads 45% are blacktop, 33% are earthen and 22% are gravel (GoN/MPPW/DoR 2008b). The SRN roads fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of Roads whereas the remaining approximately 10000 km of local roads are the responsibility of the Department of Local Infrastructure and Agricultural Roads (DoLIDAR).

Since the end of the People’s War and the signing of the Peace Accord in 2006, Nepal has been undergoing a huge change in its government including the mandate to write a new constitution by May 2010. The deadline has been currently extended and the political situation is still unstable. Consequently, accurate information about the current administration’s plans for road building is not available. However, from the information that is available the recent building of rural roads under DoLIDAR was planned and implemented according to the 2005 Integrated Rural Accessibility Planning Guidelines (HMGN/MLD/DoLIDAR 2005). Under the DoLIDAR plan, local Village Development Committees (VDC) work with the District Development Committees (DDC) to prepare a District Periodic Plan that covers the development needs of the district over a least a five-year period including a District Transport Master Plan (DTMP).

 This process of decentralization to the village level has been an ongoing process in Nepal for some time with the recognition that the local inhabitants benefit more from projects that they identify and participate in then those planned from the top down. The most recent National Transport Policy available (2001) states this concept of decentralized governance and local development of transport as one of its three main strategies (HMGN/MPPW 2001). Consequently, the new IRAP Guideline (2005) was instituted to further this process by giving local governments even more involvement in infrastructure projects which stated (HMGN/MLD/DoLIDAR 2005: 16):

This policy covers infrastructure for local transportation, irrigation and river control, small hydro power and alternate energy, drinking water, sewerage and sanitation, housing, building and urban development, management of solid waste and social infrastructure including government offices, health, education etc.. The policy aims to increase the participation of local people in physical and social infrastructure development to enhance the social services, economic opportunities and mobilization of local resources.

Under this strategy, the goal is to provide access in rural areas to all-weather motorable roads within 4 hours walking distance in the hills and 2 hours in the Terai. It was estimated in 2007 that 39% of the population in the hills do not have access within 4 hours and 13% in the Terai do not have access within 2 hours (Shah 2007). In 2007, there were still 12 district headquarters, of a total 75, that did not have a road connection (GoN/MPPW/DoR 2008b). However, by 2009, that number had been cut in half with currently (2009) only six district headquarters remaining unconnected (Khanal 2009, Sitaula 2009). Funds for road construction come from several sources including the Central Government, the Roads Board, and donor agencies. Donor agencies such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank (WB) contribute through multi-lateral loans and bi-lateral grants making up the majority of the contributions at 70% of the total (Pande 2006).

While significant progress has been made, road density still remains low compared to other south Asian countries at 12.1 km per 100 km² (Figure A.7) (UNDP 2006). Most recent estimates (2008) put the National Road Network at a total of 24000 km with 30% blacktop, 27% gravel, and 43% earthen. Of the total, 54.3% are local roads, 13% are urban and 32.5% are strategic (Sitaula 2009)Figure A.7 Nepal road length in km per 100 km² (Nepal Road Statistics 2002 in Pande 2006)