July 20, Kathmandu.
A photo of a collapsed road in Dudhauli Municipality of Sindhuli is being discussed on social media today. The road from Ward No. 10 Lakhima to Ward No. 13 Thakur Damar was tarred by Emanuel Construction Company. Three kilometres of the 12-and-a-half-kilometre road has been damaged by normal rains.
Locals say that the 'base' of the road built for Rs 258 million was demolished as it was pitched without proper preparation. Mayor of Dudhauli Municipality Ghanshyam Raut says that the situation has arisen due to a lack of proper drainage and maintenance of prescribed quality.
The road in Bareng Bazaar of Bareng village municipality of Baglung has been uprooted within six months after the blacktop. Locals said that the road was damaged due to poor quality work done by the contractor. However, village chairman Krishna Prasad Sharma claimed that the road was damaged due to tractors/tippers and heavy equipment carrying more than their carrying capacity.
The road has been tarred for Rs. 14.7 million with 50 percentage cost-sharing from the federal government and 50 percentage from the village municipality.
The condition of not only local roads but also national highways and strategically important roads are similar. Less than five months after the upgrade, a 41-kilometre-long road connecting Bhairahawa to Lumbini and Kapilvastu district headquarters Toulihawa has started falling into a ditch, says local Pervez Khan.
The construction of the road for Rs 2.9 billion was delayed by a year from the agreement reached by the Indian company Gavar Construction. This road of tourist importance has been demolished without being handed over to the government.
The Belahiya-Butwal trade route has also been uprooted and washed away. The locals are also amazed to see that the road connecting the border with India is in disrepair.
Less than a year after the completion of construction, the black leaf has been uprooted on the Barhakilo-Chhepetar road section of Gorkha. Locals had protested last October after the so-called asphalt pitch on the road collapsed.
There is a problem of uprooting the road as the dust of the road has not been increased. Locals have been raising questions after the 11-kilo-Chhepetar-Bhaluswara-Barpak road project office spent.
Why are they broken?
The incident was not new to Nepal. Why do the black leaves, which cost millions, break down in a few months?
Former Senior Divisional Engineer of the Road Department Rajendra Sharma said that the problem of black leaf uprooting has increased due to the inability to pay attention to quality. He gave the example of Dhalkebar-Pathlaiya road.
"In 2028, when I was 5-6 years old, the Dhalkebar-Pathlaiya road section built by Russia was fine when I returned from the Soviet Union as an engineer in 2048," he says.
Experts say that the road is not prepared before blacktopping, not constructing drains to save the pitch, using low-quality bitumen (tar), not looking at the weather on the day of tarring, not paying attention to the work to be done after tarring.
Deepak Bhattarai, Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport, says that the quality of the road has been affected by many factors such as the structure of the road, quality of construction materials, weather conditions, the capacity of contractors and effectiveness of monitoring.
According to him, before levelling the road, good preparation should be done at the level of gravelling and base level. The prescribed gravel, gravel-soil mixed base strengthens the grip of the blacktop along with the lower layer of the road.
Negligence in preparation
Rajendra Sharma, the former senior divisional engineer of the road department, said that the cold and damp part should be allowed to dry while paving the road. The base should be roughened and rolled.
If the water is cooled, it will not last. Water is the main enemy of tar used for black leaves. When blacktop the road, dust and sand should be removed completely. The road should be paved well and only the gravel placed at the base should be visible. On top of this, molten tar (prime) should be sprinkled. It connects ballast and black leaf.
At present, the contractors in different districts are not making the road stable by using enough rollers, not cleaning the dust properly and blackening the road to complete the work even if it is cold.
The roller should be operated well even after the black sheeting is done, but the contractor does not use the roller much after laying the black sheeting saying that the cost will increase. In some places, drinking water and sewerage pipes are installed under the road and even if water leaks, it is blackened.
Even though it is raining in the rainy season, it is found to be blackened. Without high-quality tar, the black leaf that is raining will not last. Sharma says that the work should be done in the afternoon on a sunny day.
"The government does not have enough engineers to control the quality. The contractor has left to hire an engineer," he said.
Questions on the quality of construction materials
The main materials used for road blacktop are ballast and bitumen. There is nobody in Nepal to measure the quality of stone, ballast and sand. There is nobody to take action if the contractor uses poor quality construction materials.
Experts say that the quality of bitumen used in Nepal is also poor. Bitumen below 50 degrees can be used only at temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius.
The road department has asked to use bitumen with a penetration grade of 80/100. But construction businessmen admit that 50-grade bitumen is being used more in Nepal.
Construction businessmen have been tarring the roads using such inferior bitumen to save cost. This is also the main reason for the rapid emergence of black leaves.
There are few instances of bitumen being rejected for sampling at the Road Department's laboratory. Not only is the road not strong enough with poor bitumen, but the life of the road is also short.
Bitumen should be tested before tarring any road. It is the responsibility of the engineer to decide whether the bitumen tested in this way is suitable for the road or not. However, there have been allegations in the past that roads are being constructed using poor quality bitumen in collaboration with engineers.
Bringing good quality bitumen for testing but using poor quality bitumen in collaboration with engineers and project officials on the road has become common in Nepal. Bitumen enters Nepal from India, Iran, Singapore and other countries. Contractors buy low-quality bitumen at low prices and blacktop the roads.
At present, bitumen mixed with 'wax' (man) is found on some roads of Nepal. Roads with such adulterated bitumen appear dull within days of being pitched. Experts say that there is a lot of blacktop on such roads.
"Iranian bitumen is considered to be of poor quality. It is heard that Iranian bitumen coming to India illegally is labelled as being made in India and imported into Nepal," said Sharma, a former senior divisional engineer of the department.
Weakness while working
Entrepreneurs blame the government's road construction standards for the rapid blackout. Construction businessman Shalikram Poudel claims that it will cost around Rs 300 million per kilometre to blacktop a 30-tonne vehicle.
"In Nepal, a cost estimate is made to build a road with more load capacity without spending even Rs 150 million," he says. "Either two axles should be added to a truck carrying 10 tons on the road to carry 30 tons, and the road will break for many days." I don't think so. '
According to the businessman, 35 cm gravel, 25 cm base and 100 mm DVM should be made and blacktopped to drive heavy vehicles. However, most of the roads are pitched with 15 cm gravel, 10 cm base and 40 mm DVM.
Most of the roads are paved without DVM. Entrepreneurs say that it is natural for the road to collapse after a 30-tonne vehicle is driven by the level of driving cars and jeeps.
"If a truck carrying 10 tons with an axle carries 30 tons, it affects the road 81 times more," says Sharma, a former senior division engineer. "Therefore, once the road is built, the load on the road must be regulated, which has not been done effectively in Nepal."
