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Bhutan's
Development |
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Road Network 2008
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Being landlocked, Bhutan is fully dependent on road network for transportation. Given the country's mountainous terrain, provision of road services is extremely difficult and costly.
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As of June 2008, the total length of roads built stands at 5362 km (including 528.90 km of forest roads, 554.20 km of access roads, and 140.8 km of power tiller tracks) with Chhukha Dzongkhag having the largest share of it with 534.6 km accounting for 10.0% of the total road network followed by Thimphu and Mongar Dzongkhags with 452.7 km (8.4%) and 431.7 km (8.1%) respectively. Gasa remains the least road networked Dzongkhag with only 36.6 km (0.7%) followed by Pema Gatshel and Tsirang Dzongkhags with 108.2 km (2.0%) and 124.9 km (2.3%).
2008, there are over 5362 km of roads of different categories comprising of 1634.3 km of national highways, 482 km of district roads, 820.7 km of feeder roads, 163 km of urban roads, 1045.6 km of farm roads, 528.9 km of forest roads, 547.2 km of access roads (i.e. the roads which provide access to religious, cultural, educational and social institutions, projects, state properties, etc.) and 140.8 km of power tiller tracks.
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The existing roads, rural road network in particular, still remains inadequate in terms of both connectivity and coverage. The Population and Housing Census (PHCB) 2005 indicates that 9.7% of the population live more than 6 hours walk away from the nearest motor road and that the rural households in six districts comprise about 73% of this percentage. The country is dependent on a single East-West national highway running through the northern part of the country. The absence of such an alternative transnational highway running through the south has constrained travel from one part of the country to the other.
Out of the total road network, 2332.06 km is currently under DoR while Project Dantak simultaneously maintains about 604.44 km. The remaining 1608.23 km are under other agencies, viz. Dzongkhag Administrations, Department of Energy, Department of Education, Ministry of Agriculture, etc.
The road network in Bhutan is divided into 9 categories .
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The country has 6.2 km of Expressway accounting for 0.12% of the total road network, 1628.1 km National Highways (30.36%), 482.0 km District Roads (8.99%), 820.7 km Feeder Roads (15.3%), 163 km Urban Roads (3.04%), 1045.6 km Farm Roads (19.5%), 528.9 km Forest Roads (9.86%), 547.2 km Access Roads (10.2%) and 140.8 km of Power Tiller Tracks (2.63%).
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Bridges
There are a total of 265 bridges categorized into 18 various types in the country out of which 148 are permanent and 117 semi-permanent. Bailey bridges are the most common of all and numbers 116 accounting for 43.77% followed by 51 RC T-Beam (19.61%) and 26 RC Slab (9.61%) types. The total length of all the bridges is 7915.73 meters.
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| Source: Ministry of Works and Human Settlement, 2008 |
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Roads
in Bhutan
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| Information on Bhutan |
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