Bhutan Transportation and Communications
Roads
Figure 16. Bhutan: Transportation System, 1988
Source: Based on information from Bhutan, Survey of Bhutan,
Bhutan: Administrative Map, Thimphu, 1988.
Until 1961, because of the lack of paved roads, travel
in
Bhutan was by foot or on muleback or horseback. The
205-kilometer
trek from the Indian border to Thimphu took six days.
Modern road
construction began in earnest during the First
Development, Plan
(1961-66). The first paved road 175-kilometers-long was
completed
in 1962 (a branch road later linked Paro with the
PhuntsholingThimphu road). Described as a jeep track, it linked
Thimphu and
Phuntsholing with Jaigaon, West Bengal. The travel time by
motor
vehicle from the border to Thimphu had shrunk to six
hours. Some
30,000 Indian and Nepalese laborers were imported to build
the road
with Indian aid at a time when India was bolstering its
strategic
defense against a possible Chinese invasion. Bhutanese
also were
obliged to donate labor for the construction work. Another
road
connecting Tashigang with Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh, also
was
built.
By the mid-1970s, about 1,500 kilometers of roads had
been
built, largely by manual labor. There was a linked network
of 2,280
kilometers of roads in 1989; at least 1,761 kilometers of
these
were paved with asphalt, and 1,393 kilometers were
classified as
national highways
(see
fig. 16). Despite the construction
of
surfaced roads linking the principal towns in the south,
the
mountainous terrain elsewhere makes travel even from one
valley to
the next quite difficult. Most roads run in river valleys.
As part
of the Sixth Development Plan, the Department of Public
Works, in
cooperation with the Indian Border Roads Organization,
made plans
to construct and upgrade 1,000 kilometers of roads and to
extend
the road network through the five major river valleys by
1992.
Motorable roads were not the only important development.
It was
estimated as part of the Fifth Development Plan that
Bhutan also
needed some 2,500 kilometers of mule tracks to connect the
nation's
4,500 settlements.
A mountainous country with numerous watersheds, Bhutan
also had
numerous bridges. Built as part of the road modernization
program,
most were of reinforced or prestressed concrete for
motorable roads
and of modular, prefabricated timber on secondary roads.
Suspended
footbridges joined paths across precipices and waterways.
Nationwide, some 6,910 vehicles were registered in
1988,
including 1,235 private automobiles, 250 taxis, 118 buses,
1,105
four-wheel-drive vehicles, and 1,249 trucks. The most
prevalent
form of transportation was motorcycles and scooters, with
some
2,882 registered in 1988. Diplomatic offices registered
the balance
of transportation vehicles. Most vehicles were of Indian,
Japanese,
and European manufacture. The Bhutan Government Transport
Service
operated a fleet of buses nationwide and provided minibus
service
twice a day between Thimphu and Phuntsholing. A subsidiary
of the
Royal Insurance Corporation, the Transport Corporation of
Bhutan
also ran bus service between Phuntsholing and Calcutta. In
FY 1989,
the government bus service carried 1.2 million passengers.
Starting
in 1985, private companies operated some bus routes. The
greater
availability of transportation increased opportunities for
Bhutanese citizens to travel within their country and
abroad. There
was no railroad system.
Although Bhutan had no railroads, a small monorail
trail was
inaugurated in Paro in 1990. It was used to haul produce
to market.
Data as of September 1991
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