TRIBHUWAN UNIVERSITY

INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING
PASHCHIMANCHAL CAMPUS
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

Assignment -1
Construction technology

Submission Date: 27th November, 2017

Submitted By : Submitted To :

Manoj Neupane Ar. Baburam Bhandari

(073MSIM08) Department of Civil Engineering
Question 1: In Nepal, there are broadly two main road construction technologies in use for
rural road construction, rehabilitation, operation & maintenance: labor- based (LB) and
equipment based EB). These technologies have their own characteristics in terms of time
taken, cost incurred, benefits/ losses delivered, employment, poverty impacts, sustainability,
etc. Evaluate yourself, which is most appropriate, beneficial and sustainable. Elaborate your
opinion with case studies and facts.
=> Rural road construction basically follows sustainable approach. Moreover, labor based than
equipment based. Basically, for road construction includes the involvement of labor as well as
equipment for sub-grade preparation, sub- base preparation, base or surface preparation either for
compaction of soil or for sprinkling water or for other purposes. As labor based technology use
better use of resources, it produces more satisfactory results than equipment based in terms of
environment protection, long term stability thus minimizing operation and maintenance cost. The
equipment handling may require skilled manpower to handle it which may or may not be available
on time. But if the equipment is available on time, the work could be rapid and proper quality of
work could also be achieved. In terms of stability of slope, such use of equipment could be
vulnerable though. Such equipment could be used only to give assist to labor and should be used
together to obtain sustainable result. Following terminologies has been used to clearly distinguish
the choice and for the adopting the technology:
Time taken: Obviously, equipment based requires less time in construction of rural road. The
excavation of soil, balancing earthwork could be rapid but the equipment should be available on
time. Labor based requires more time for construction. And requires the availability of time of
those labors. The project duration should be expanded if taken on account.
Cost incurred: The cost of construction using equipment will be higher as the equipment costs
higher or the equipment can be brought from lease which could be effective but as the cost of labor
is less and they can be used more in number, it requires less cost.
Benefits/ losses delivered: The road construction with use of equipment may produce effective
benefits and the requirement for maintenance will be quite much less.
Employment: As the works that could be done by labors will be done by equipment, large number
of employment opportunities will be cut-off. But if the labors are used in such construction, it will
produce large number of employment opportunities of the rural areas and especially to those who
are marginalized, particularly poorest of the poor of the community.
Poverty impacts: As the labor based construction facilitates the poorest of the poor, it will help in
eliminating poverty, and will certainly help to increase help in increasing GDP of the country.
Sustainability: Some of the rural roads constructed by communities through local bodies, without
engineering inputs, are causing a lot of problems. The proper use of labor as well as equipment in
effective manner could produce the qualitative output resulting less requirement of cost for
operation and maintenance. The cost of improvement of such roads will be a lot of money in the
future. Natural resources management, infrastructure development and basic services to improve
human capabilities and productivity could be obtained from labor based construction technology.

ER. MANOJ NEUPANE 1

Many line agencies has been working for the rural road construction, rehabilitation and either for
operation and maintenance based on labor based as their primary objectives would be to reduce
poverty and provide employment to marginalized areas focusing on improvement of their living
standard.
Lamosangu-Jiri road which has been considered as the first labor based road constructed is an
example. This road has brought long-term development such as tourism, better schooling, and
improved health care to the area. In the district of Dolakha where this road was built, the literacy
rate has jumped three-fold, i.e., from 17% in 1981 to 51% in 2001. Similarly, while the infant
mortality rate in the district in 1989 was 108 for every 1000 births, it has now declined to 50 per
1000 births. The maternal mortality rate for every 100,000 also declined from more than 600
to 350 during the 1990s. Though all this improvement cannot be attributed to the Lamosangu-
Jiri road alone, it is evident that the facilities the new road offered to the people has played
a crucial role in this development. Labor based roads are said to be economically viable if the
internal rate of return is at least 12%
Heavy equipment is expensive to mobilize, difficult to deploy in site without excessive
environmental damage and subject to excessive downtime due to the delay in obtaining spares
and fuel from the capital. From the experience of the DoR in Nepal, it was estimated that per km
cost of construction of road by conventional method as NRs 5 to 8 million in 1998 which is
expected to increase almost twice to date considering heavy price rises in the fuel, construction
equipment and the construction materials. The construction of Lamosangu-Jiri road at the cost of
NRs 250 million for the entire 110km stretch in 1985; the road has been serving as a model for
other mountain roads even up to date.
So, Cost does reduced if the road are constructed using sustainable concept and the most
importantly over 65% of the cost remains within the local economy, which in case of the dozer
made construction will goes to the capital motivated Contractors. Generally, these projects adopt
the cost cutting measures. The implementation of these projects minimizes the use of expensive
items. Cost-cutting measures include using locally available workers and materials instead of
bringing in technicians and construction materials such as cement and steel. This approach
ensures projects are affordable and built within the financial limitations of local communities.

CONCLUSION
In an effort to establish the use of either labor based or equipment based various parameters were
used like time taken, cost incurred, benefits/ losses delivered, employment, poverty impacts,
sustainability criteria and indicators suitable for Nepalese rural road infrastructure projects,
sustainability assessment tools that are being adopted in the built environment or infrastructure in
Nepal was examined.
The improvement of basic infrastructure can be achieved by labor-based technology by: 1)
creating employment by orienting investments towards employment-intensive public and
community infrastructure in both urban and rural areas; 2) constructing, rehabilitating and
maintaining infrastructure using local labor, local resources and local capacities, thereby
maximizing employment and income-generation for the poor; 3) providing technical advisory and

ER. MANOJ NEUPANE 2

capacity-building services for the planning and implementation of different types of
employment-intensive infrastructure.

ER. MANOJ NEUPANE 3