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NepalRoads
Nepal's first paved road was built with aid from India
in the
early 1950s. It connected Kathmandu with Raxaul on the
Indian
border. As of 1997, additional roads were being built,
primarily
with the cooperation of India but also the United States,
including
an East-West Highway through southern portions of the
country.
Other roads, in various stages of planning, construction,
or
already completed, were built with assistance from Saudi
Arabia,
India, Britain, the Soviet Union, Switzerland, China, the
United
States, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank.
Prior to the First Five-Year Plan, Nepal had
approximately 600
kilometers of roads, including fair weather roads.
Although targets
were rarely met on time, road construction has increased.
By midJuly 1989, approximately 2,900 kilometers of paved roads,
1,600
kilometers of gravel roads, and 2,500 kilometers of
earthen (fair
weather) roads were in existence. Most goods and
passengers
utilized these roads, and transit no longer was
exclusively through
India.
The main roads consisted of east-west and north-south
highways.
The longest highway was the Mahendra Highway, or East-West
Highway.
Its total proposed length was approximately 1,050
kilometers, of
which 850 kilometers were completed as of 1989. The
114-kilometer
Arniko Highway, which connected Kathmandu with Kodari on
the
Chinese border, was constructed with Chinese assistance.
The
Siddhartha Highway was constructed with India's help and
connected
the Pokhara Valley with Sonauli in India's Uttar Pradesh
state.
Some of the other completed highways (rajmarg)
running eastwest were the Tribhuvan-Rajpath, Prithvi, and Kodari
highways.
Among north-south highways, Gorkha-Narayangadh,
Kohalpur-Surkhet,
Sindhuli-Bargachi, and Dhangadhi-Dadeldhura roads were
mostly
completed in the early 1990s. A number of north-south
roads were
being constructed to connect with the east-west Mahendra
Highway.
Because of the terrain, the building and maintenance of
roads
was very expensive. Landslides in hilly areas during
monsoon season
were very common. There were also several rivers and
creeks running
from north to south whose levels during monsoon season
were
difficult to predict. All these factors caused periodic
slowdowns
in the movement of trucks and buses. Nevertheless, as a
result of
road expansion, several private firms ran passenger buses
and
trucks to transport goods. From 1980 to 1990, the number
of
passenger vehicles increased by more than 100 percent.
During FY
1990, new vehicle registrations included 723 buses and
minibuses,
240 trucks, and 1,831 jeeps, cars, and pickup vans.
Data as of September 1991
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