Farm roads go awry
11 June 2010
While some gewogs have excessive farm road connectivity, 64 out of 205 gewogs are yet to be connected. The road network in the country is unbalanced, according to Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report on performance audit on farm roads presented to the parliament last week.
About 49 of the 266 farm roads appear non-functional.
The Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), in the 9th plan, exceeded the farm road construction target by 78 percent, constructing 1,064.84 km as against the planned 597. 63 km, but 78 percent of the constructions were unplanned. The approved target for the 10th plan is 3,265 km of farm roads. The government has promised to connect all gewogs with motorable road by the end of 10th plan.
According to a Vulnerability Assessment and Mapping study carried out by the MoA and World Food Programme in 2005, 37 percent of the gewogs falling under the most vulnerable category emphasized that improvement of road accessibility would reduce food insecurity in the gewogs. In line with the 10th plan goal of poverty reduction, the MoA aims to reduce the proportion of population living beyond one hour’s walk from a motorable road head to 20 percent.
Can the target be achieved? Going by the performance audit report on farm roads, there are many challenges. PAC said that there was lack of compliance to Farm Road Guidelines due to systematic failure of coordination within the three responsible agencies – local governments, agriculture ministry and GNH Commission.
There was no practice of preparing detail drawings, designs, proper survey and planning due to which roads were constructed following rudimentary method of pegging and, sometimes, at the discretion of local leaders. Some roads were constructed without socio-economic and techno-feasibility studies.
In most cases, farm roads were approved without following the due process of prioritization like considering the needs, number of beneficiaries and the availability of resources leading to uneven distribution of farm roads among various gewogs and dzongkhags.
Moreover, the audit team noted that MoA has not carried out any impact assessment to assess the benefits accrued from the farm roads, problems encountered and suggestions for future improvements. It was not appropriate to venture into projects of huge investment without proper impact assessment.
One of the main hurdles in provision of roads was the provision of bridges viciously affecting some dzongkhags by depriving farm roads on ground of requirement of bridges incurring huge expenditures. There was also a hurdle in securing support from the beneficiaries due to lack of adequate compensation for loss of land.
Royal Audit Authority observed that, in places like Mongar and Bumthnag, there were farm roads ending either in the forest, hill-tops or barren land where there were no settlements, leading to their underutilization.
There were farm roads, which are less than one km, in Paro, Haa, Bumthnag and Thimphu indicating injudicious use of resources considering there are still some 20,552 households located in places involving more than two hours walk from the nearest road head.
Most farm roads were observed to be abandoned and dysfunctional due to lack of budget for repairs and maintenance. These reflect improper need assessment of benefiting the farmers and ineffective use of resources. In line with this, the PAC endorsed the MoA’s recommendation of providing adequate budget for first two years for all gewog roads.
The audit report states that the engineers of the works and human settlement ministry in the dzongkhags lacked professional technical competence in construction of farm roads, and there was a huge workload ranging from 20 sites for one engineer to supervise as against the government’s policy to adhere to only five sites or projects.
Inadequate financial resources have also led to poor quality works. The fund allocation for farm roads during the 9th plan was about Nu 1.3 million a km. However, it has now been revised to Nu 3 million a km.
moreover, the change in gradient, road directions and its distances resulted in cost escalation, unreasonable delays and poor quality of road. Lack of adequate machineries also contributed to incompletion of the assigned activity on time.
Audit findings also show poor quality of works carried out through outsourcing, inadequate centralized inventory of farm roads and non-compliance to environmental procedures, inadequate provision for culverts, drainage and other permanent works, and quarrying and logging operations on the farm roads and their vicinity.
However, in order to expedite the process of construction under the 10th plan, the agriculture department will outsource some of the survey, design and supervision of the constructions. This is also expected to lessen the work burden on the already overstretched dzongkhag engineering sector. The expectation is to improve the quality of roads.
To support construction of farm roads, Central Machinery Unit (CMU) in Bumthang will maintain a pool of machinery equipment so that infrastructure work beyond the capacity of outsourced agencies can be taken up without delay. It will provide technical backstopping through the provision of earth-moving machinery at subsidized rates.
The total budget under 10th plan for farm roads construction project is Nu 588.786 million. And the indicative total capital outlay for road and bridge sector, including spillover feeder roads, is Nu 13,707.861 million.
By Sonam Pelden
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drinking water supply coverage……now farm road fiasco ….next what?
all these are hapening in the rural areas where there is not much attention and resources are wasted.
our poor farmers………they are always the losers.
It is ironic that when most of the farm roads are either not motorable or non-functional and many geogs still do not have road connectivity, even the farm roads under Zhabtog Lyonpo’s constituency are getting soling and blacktopping. It is also understood that funds meant for roads in eastern Bhutan are being diverted to western and southern Bhutan. Is this justice and equity? What about the policy of balanced development? What has the PAC done to correct the above imbalance? We will wait and see so that we can pass our judgment in the next election.
why the farm road under s/jongkhar and shingkhar lauri delayed?. is this the dpts progress within 2years of their ruling.