Rural Road Development Through Routine Maintenance

Abstract

This thesis entitled " Rural Road Development through routine maintenance: A case study of Rasuwa District Nepal". The general objective of this study are the impacts of development of rural roads through routine maintenance, socio-economic condition of routine maintenance worker involved in rural road and the success stories of routine maintenance workers of Rasuwa District. Rasuwa district is one remote himalya district with not having municipality. The study attempts to documents of conditions of rural roads of Rasuwa district and focus on socio-economic condition of routine maintenance workers in the study area.

This study is related to the Rasuwa District, a part of Province No. 3, is one of the seventy-seven districts of Nepal. The district, with Dhunche as its district headquarters, covers an area of 1,544 km² and has a population (2011) of 43,300. As per census 2011 total households in Rasuwa district is 9,778. It is the smallest district by area, among 16 districts in the Himalaya region of Nepal. Rasuwa district has an estimated road network of 308.57 kilometers, including 73 kilometers of strategic roads managed by DOR and 155.87 kilometers of rural roads and remaining 79.5 kilometers of village roads managed by Rasuwa DCC and the RMs.

Through Strengthening the National Rural Transport Programme (SNRTP), 19 nos of rural roads are on routine maintenance with 87 nos of routine maintenace workers. Among them, taking lower belt portion of Rasuwa District, 13 numbers of rural roads are selected for research purpose. The research focus on the rural road development through routine maintenance & impact of rural road maintenance on communit and the socio-economic survey of 55 routine maintenance workers involved in these 13 roads are another major part of this study.

It was summarized that routine maintenance is one efficient & effective tools for the development of rural roads with low cost using local resources & providing jobs to local people. After the routine maintenance of rural road, there is drastically changed in rural roads. About 80% of rural roads are found all weather roads & 6 non maintainable roads converted into maintainable roads. It is one effective method to provide all-weather rural road access to all parts of district with minimum cost. Through routine maintenance, a lot of local people get decent jobs in rural areas as routine maintenance workers, that makes the promoting economic growth of local people.

Routine maintenance provides access to services areas. Due to proper maintenance, vehicle users are increased & local people can easily sales their products to the market center, expand local service area & develop local transportation. Routine maintenance also promotes the local market products & also promotes tourism. Thus it is recommended to continue the routine maintenance to all rural roads of Nepal.