The Works and Human Settlement Minister, Dorji Tshering said the implementation of Phase II of the farm road improvement project will depend on the progress of Phase I. Despite the ongoing Granular Sub-base or GSB works of Phase I underway in some gewogs, the government was questioned on the implementation of Phase II chiwog road maintenance. Member of Parliament of Bardo-Trong, Gyambo Tshering raised the question during the question hour session at the National Assembly today.
The Works and Human Settlement Minister during the question hour session at the National Assembly earlier this month said only 33 gewogs have completed their Granular Sub-base works since Phase I of the project. The minister added that phase II of the chiwog road maintenance will depend on the outcomes of phase I.
GSB consists of a uniform mixture of granular material placed on a prepared subgrade and uniformly moistened, shaped and compacted. It acts as a drainage layer for the pavement to avoid excessive wetting and weakening of the subgrade.
Phase I includes one farm road for each gewog, phase II will focus on improving three farm roads and Phase III will focus on the remaining roads.
“We have informed all the ministry’s road engineers to go and inspect the roads constructed in phase I and identify the problems and measures to maintain it. The reason why we are waiting for two months to start phase II is to see the impact of monsoon over the GSB roads and to seek experts views and opinions based on phase I,” said Dorji Tshering, Works and Human Settlement Minister.
Phase II of the Chiwog road maintenance is expected to cover almost 4,000 kilometres at a cost of nearly NU 4bn. The budget allocated for the construction of one kilometre of GSB and drainage is Nu 1.667 M.
Tshering Dendup
