Nepal is a mountainous country situated in the heart of the Himalaya.

This young mountain chain is also famous worldwide for its very active tectonics. Furthermore, it lies in an area of strong monsoon precipitation, with the rainfall distribution being such that over 90 percent occurs within a short three months. Extreme rainfall events are very common which can bring over 400 mm of rain within 24 hours. Thus, these geological and climatic factors make the mountain slopes of Nepal highly vulnerable for to rainfall triggered landslides. Construction of roads in the mountains of Nepal is complicated because of steep slopes, thick soil profiles, weak rock mass and torrential rainfall due to the monsoon. This paper is intended to describe the engineering geological issues of low cost roads in Nepal with some illustrations. Later in the paper, some mitigation measures used to stabilize the slopes are also evaluated with some illustrations. Construction of roads in the mountains of Nepal is quite complicated because of steep slopes, thick soil profiles, weak rockmass and the extreme rainfall of the monsoon season. In the name of low cost, many roads of Nepal do not have any standard engineering structures. As a result, low cost road construction and maintenance programs are widely affected by landslide and debris flow triggered by monsoon rainfall. Generally,shallow failure occurred along the roadside, both in uphill as well as downhill slopes, are major geological problems of roads of Nepal. Although, cost effective techniques are very important for a developing country like Nepal, experience of Nepal reveals that low cost roads are not the best solution for sustainable development of underdeveloped countries. Nepals total road network and density are low and only43% of the population has access toall-weather roads In the last ten years, road construction projects in Nepal have been considered a major part of infrastructure development. The growth in roads shows an exponential increase from 376 km in 1950 to 20,600 km (including usable rural roads) by 2007 (a period of 58 years). Even now the road density is low, about 6 km/100 sq km. Most of the roads (either rural roads or national highways) in Nepal are low cost roads, not built to international standard. Nowadays, there are many projects of district or rural road construction. These roads are being constructed with the participation of the people but very littletechnical supervision. Many international donor agencies are providing funds for local governments to construct roads. Some of the major donor agencies for low cost road projects in Nepal are the Asian Development Bank (ADB), World Bank (WB), UK Department of International Development (DFID), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Deutsche Gesellschaft fr Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ, an internationalcooperation enterprise from

Germany), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). High-paid short term consultants from developed countries work on these road construction projects and provide engineering as well as socioeconomic consulting service for low cost road construction. But, most of the time, international consultants only suggest economical road construction practices rather than sustainable road construction methods suited to the highly dynamic Himalayan environment. It is not unusual for the total cost of a rural low cost road project to be lower than one days travel and daily allowance for an international consultant. For example, for 2009/10, the District Development Committee of Dolakha district has approved 100 low cost rural road projects and most of the rural roads are 10 to 15 km long whereas the budget sanctioned for each road project is only about US$270!! (District Technical Officer, Dolakha district, pers. comm.). In fact, road construction practices in Nepal are mostly guided by the desire of the donor agencies and the interests of local political leaders. This is partly attributable to the lack of uniform and mandatory national standards and guidelines. Many stretches of road do not have any standard engineering structures and the roads are usually constructed on side slopes requiring cut and fill. Locally available materials are used to protect the cut slope, usually dry stone retaining walls or bioengineering are used for protecting slopes. In recent years, district or rural road construction projects have already grown by 11% annually. A related fact is that more than 50% of the Village Development Committees (VDCs) from all over Nepal have a User Committee for rural road construction. Nowadays, many slopes in the mid-hills are dissected by earthen roads and, due to the lack of engineering standards; these roads are almost unusable for vehicle movement. As a result, low cost roads are prone to shallow and deep seated landslides during the monsoon. The poor engineering conditions of the roads hampers the delivery of social services in the remote hill and mountainous districts and directly or indirectly affects the countrys economic development. Lack of connectivity in presence of low cost road projects are major impediments to the development of Nepal. In Nepal, about one third of the total road length is earthen roads (33%), with the remainder of the network comprising gravel roads (22%) and bitumen sealed roads (45%). The Nepal Road Standards classifies roads as follows: National Highways connecting the length and width of the country

Feeder Roads providing access to important trade centres and district headquarters from the national highways District Roads providing access between a districts headquarters and its trade centres. Urban Roads within the city area Rural Roads to provide access to rural settlements and agricultural centres National highways and feeder roads are included in the Strategic Road Network (SRN) under the jurisdiction of the Department of Roads (DoR); the SRN comprises nearly one third of the total road length. The remaining two thirds are considered as district roads, rural roads, urban roads, agricultural roads and capillary roads which are under the jurisdiction of Department of Local Infrastructure Development and Agricultural Roads (DoLIDAR) and local bodies (District Development Committees, Village Development Committees and Municipalities). Major highways like Prithivi Highway, Tribhuvan Highway, Siddhartha Highway, and East-West Highway are continuously in the maintenance phase. New highways like Dhulikhel-Sindhuli Road, Chhinchu-Jajarkot Road, Surkhet-Jumla Road, KatariOkhaldhungaRoad, Mid-Hills Roads and Beni-Jomsom are in the construction phase.