| Author | Basnyet, Saroj K. |
| Call Number | AIT Diss. no. HS-94-04 |
| Subject(s) | Roads--Economic aspects--Nepal
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| Note | A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, School of Engineering and Technology |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Series Statement | Dissertation ; no. HS-94-04 |
| Abstract | Due to the highest priority given by farmers , traders and politicians residing in areas inaccessible to vehicles for the construction of roads to t heir market centres and settlements , and the limited financial resources available to meet this high demand, it has become important to establish a conceptual and a methodological framewo r k for an analysis of the likely impact of roads and to deve lop rural regional strategies for future investment decisions in roads in the middle hill s of Nepal. The planning challenge lie s in making the maximum utilization of existing potentials and opportunities with limited financial resources available. It is well known that the lack of roads perpetuates subsistence agriculture and stalls the progress of transformation. Despite t he importance of the topic, only a meager amount of research has been carried out on ยท the ways in which the impacts of transport improvements are interwoven with economic change. There is clearly a need to develop a better understanding of the mechanism by which the benefits of roads are spatially distributed at different distances from the road. Some of the factors affecting this are the location of the regional center in relation to the middle hills , processes of interaction developing between the regional centre and the middle hills, and the structure or the agricultural resource base of the district in relation to regional market demand for crops. This thesis attaches importance to the dynamic regional centre for inducing the development of processes of trade flows b etween the centre and the district. It assesses savings in the transport and market access costs of agricultural commodities at different spatial units, both accessible and inaccessible to vehicles from the regional centre . It analyses the impact of distance from the regional centre , distance from the road, and the potential agricultural resource base on the production cost and the economic rent of dominant cash crops. It analyzes implications of these variations on spatial transformations of market centres located on different types of roads and trails. Findings of this thesis are based on a sample survey of 400 households using both rural rapid appraisal techniques and systematic sampling procedures. Surveys were carried out at market centres, both accessible and inaccessible to vehicles , and settlements under their influence located at 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and 1 day walking distance from them. Based on the analyses and synthesis of this thesis, it argues for modifying the present approach of disbursing scarce financial resources among many roads in the middle hills to concentrating available investments on few properly i |
| Year | 1994 |
| Corresponding Series Added Entry | Asian Institute of Technology. Dissertation ; no. HS-94-04 |
| Type | Dissertation |
| School | School of Engineering and Technology (SET) |
| Department | Department of Civil and Infrastucture Engineering (DCIE) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Human Settlement (HS) |
| Chairperson(s) | Demaine, Harvey;Kammeier, H. Detlef ; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Routray, Jayanta K.;Leinbach, Thomas R.; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | ICIMOD, UNITAR; |
| Degree | Thesis (Ph.D.) - Asian Institute of Technology |