A major challenge facing Bhutan today is increasing and improving rural road access and connectivity to different districts, geogs and villages. Motor road access and connectivity is a necessity for economic development and advancement. Road is a priority demand of the community. Currently, there are 1634.5 km of express/national highways, 481.2 km of district roads, 809.2 km of feeder roads, 150.6 km of urban roads, 716.9 km of farm roads and 559.6 km of forest roads (10th FYP, Programme Profiles, GNHC,2009). Construction of roads, farm roads, power tiller tracts in Bhutan is an expensive affair given the difficult mountain terrain and topography. The cost to build a kilometer of farm road is Nu. 3.00 million. Government has plans to build rural access road to all 205 geogs by end of 10th FYP. 66 geog centres do not have access road, not to mention of the hundreds of villages which do not any prospect at all.
The negative impact of road construction on environment is well documented. Some of the well known recurrent landslide areas in Bhutan are by the national highways and roads. Even the most latest, appropriate and environment friendly road construction technologies and methods would still leave a bad scar. The spectre of high maintenance cost later looms large over the national exchequer. In some cases, farm road are but glorified mule tracts and footpaths while others are dysfunctional or abandoned. Therefore, it is important to provide environment friendly, sustainable and cheaper rural accessibility and connectivity/transportation options to these remote villages of Bhutan.
Why not promote gravity ropeways in remote areas in Bhutan at strategic locations where there are no roads. In its most basic form it consists of a single span made with fibre rope, simply anchored at each end. The gravity ropeway is an inexpensive and simple means of transportation. It operates by gravitational force without the use of external power. The gravity ropeway consists of two trolleys which roll on support tracks. These are attached to a control cable in the middle which moves in a traditional flywheel system. When the loaded trolley at the up-station is pulled downward by the force of gravity, the other trolley at the bottom-station is pulled up automatically by means of the control cable. In principal the goods coming downward from the up-station must to be thrice as heavy as the up-going load. The sliding down of the trolley and its speed depends upon the angle of elevation made by the cables installed with the horizontal ground.
Gravity ropeway is a commonplace in Nepal and Himachal Pradesh, India. And more importantly it is environment-friendly and cheap. With the introduction of such a technology, the travel time would come down drastically. What it would usually take 6 hours to reach the nearest road head on foot, farmers can transport their farm produce within minutes with the help of gravity ropeways. It will help in the marketing of agricultural products and other goods.
The cost of constructing gravity ropeways is much cheaper than constructing a farm road. The maintenance cost is minimal and moreover farmers can be taught to carry out basic maintenance by themselves. As it is vogue in other countries, a community-based organization or a farmer?s group must be entrusted for the smooth operation and management of the facility. A nominal user-fee, based on the quantity/weight of the goods, could be worked out to meet the cost of maintenance and spare parts. In this way, the community will continue to pool their resources-human, material and financial- and begin to bank on their own resources for ushering endogenous development process.