ENGINEERING EVALUATION : WESTERN HILLS HIGHWAY PROJECT, WITH COMMENTS ON NEPALGANJ - SURKHET HIGHWAY (4/9/73-5/20/73)

India's support for the 140 km road from Dhangarhi to Dandelhura will terminate at the end of FY 73. Before approving a loan to His Majesty's Government (HMG) for completion of the project, USAID desired this independent evaluation to properly define the project and the work remaining to be accomplished. The report reviews present construction status, plans, cost estimates, and HMG technical capabilities. It also evaluates a proposed 80 km road between Nepalganj and Surkhet, also located in the Western Hills sector of Nepal. The 7-week evaluation included discussions with Mission and HMG personnel, a review of records, plus air and ground inspection. A reasonable balance between labor intensive and capital intensive construction methods has been achieved on the Western Hills road and a similar approach should be used on the Surkhet project. The attached listing of recommended construction equipment is, superficially, rather impressive for labor intensive construction. However, the evaluators point out the following facts which must be taken into account: (1) 84% of the project is in difficult mountainous terrain; (2) the remoteness of the area causes difficult equipment maintenance problems such that "down time" is quite high, and (3) shipping damage plus transit vandalism and theft combine to greatly prolong the time interval between receipt and placing into service of new equipment (in extreme cases in excess of 1 year). Report recommends various changes in road and bridge construction specifications, and recalculates projected costs. Technical capabilities of HMG are limited by experience rather than by numbers or education. Additional expatriate assistance is needed in bridge design, equipment utilization, operation and maintenance, and, in the case of the Surkhet Road, engineering geology.