Home > Voices > Farm road construction needs rethinking

Farm road construction needs rethinking

3 November 2009

As a commitment to eliminate rural poverty, the royal government’s strategy to connect all gewogs with farm roads, thereby promoting accessibility to market and creating better living conditions for the rural population is a noble policy and highly commendable.
But having observed the present construction method of farm roads in many corners of our country, I feel that the government must keep in mind the sustainability of these farm roads and thereby accord immense importance to this development aspect.
Everyone may know that our farm road construction comprises simple earth cutting to the required dimensions of the road, also taking care of the gradient or maintaining the steepness of the slope. But since millions have already been invested and more will be invested in constructing farm roads around the country, I would like to point out to our development policy makers, planners, especially the engineers of MoA that building farm roads as we do now requires depper thoughts.
I have seen in some cases, the gradients are too steep while in others, there are no drainage provisions. Some even do not have the required width and the cross-slope. These are the fundamentals of road construction, I believe.
But these are not the aspects which caught my attention ever since the farm road construction works began. The most important aspect, I noticed, was the missing base course or the stone soling.
Without at least this base course layer, the farm roads constructed till now would gradually fall apart and would not be fit for use. In some places, due to heavy rains in summer, these roads have become muddy and thereby uneven with huge undulations and very unfit for use.
Based on the base course criteria, all farm roads are unsustainable infrastructure and thus all will fail. Based on the gradient criteria, about 20-30% of our farm roads will fail.
Based on the drainage and cross-slope criteria, more than 50% of our farm roads will fail. Although we do face budgetary constraints as always, I would like to appeal to the development experts concerned to kindly look into the planning and design aspects of the farm roads. More than the designers or the engineers who have just come up with this design due to the understanding of fund constraints, it would be the development experts, planners and the policy makers who need to give a careful thought to this issue, weighing the initial investment and the long-term huge maintenance costs (in most cases, as good as constructing a new road).
Because 5 years down the line, we will be talking about another millions of ngultrums for the maintenance of these roads or more likely would be a complete redo or reconstruction of these roads. So why can’t we rethink the planning process, when we have so much budget shortage to even construct new farm roads, let alone maintain the existing ones in another 5 years or so? Why can’t we be wiser and more intelligent in spending our limited resources?
The farmers are not asking for black-topped roads, they are just asking for sonam zhinglam, which to them means a simple accessibility to the nearest market from their places of residence, which the government must provide but with at least a reasonable components of quality and sustainability, given the resource constraint.

As a commitment to eliminate rural poverty, the royal government’s strategy to connect all gewogs with farm roads, thereby promoting accessibility to market and creating better living conditions for the rural population is a noble policy and highly commendable.

But having observed the present construction method of farm roads in many corners of our country, I feel that the government must keep in mind the sustainability of these farm roads and thereby accord immense importance to this development aspect.

Everyone may know that our farm road construction comprises simple earth cutting to the required dimensions of the road, also taking care of the gradient or maintaining the steepness of the slope. But since millions have already been invested and more will be invested in constructing farm roads around the country, I would like to point out to our development policy makers, planners, especially the engineers of MoA that building farm roads as we do now requires depper thoughts.

I have seen in some cases, the gradients are too steep while in others, there are no drainage provisions. Some even do not have the required width and the cross-slope. These are the fundamentals of road construction, I believe.

But these are not the aspects which caught my attention ever since the farm road construction works began. The most important aspect, I noticed, was the missing base course or the stone soling.

Without at least this base course layer, the farm roads constructed till now would gradually fall apart and would not be fit for use. In some places, due to heavy rains in summer, these roads have become muddy and thereby uneven with huge undulations and very unfit for use.

Based on the base course criteria, all farm roads are unsustainable infrastructure and thus all will fail. Based on the gradient criteria, about 20-30% of our farm roads will fail.

Based on the drainage and cross-slope criteria, more than 50% of our farm roads will fail. Although we do face budgetary constraints as always, I would like to appeal to the development experts concerned to kindly look into the planning and design aspects of the farm roads. More than the designers or the engineers who have just come up with this design due to the understanding of fund constraints, it would be the development experts, planners and the policy makers who need to give a careful thought to this issue, weighing the initial investment and the long-term huge maintenance costs (in most cases, as good as constructing a new road).

Because 5 years down the line, we will be talking about another millions of ngultrums for the maintenance of these roads or more likely would be a complete redo or reconstruction of these roads. So why can’t we rethink the planning process, when we have so much budget shortage to even construct new farm roads, let alone maintain the existing ones in another 5 years or so? Why can’t we be wiser and more intelligent in spending our limited resources?

The farmers are not asking for black-topped roads, they are just asking for sonam zhinglam, which to them means a simple accessibility to the nearest market from their places of residence, which the government must provide but with at least a reasonable components of quality and sustainability, given the resource constraint.

By Jigme Tshering

Ratings: 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars
Loading ... Loading ...
Email this page Email this page     Print this page Print this page    

Posted by Bhutan Observer · Filed Under Voices 

Comments

Leave your comment





Note: Comments are moderated by Bhutan Observer, and may not appear until they have been reviewed and deemed appropriate for posting.

Bhutan Observer is Digg proof thanks to caching by WP Super Cache