Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0001/00015.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 22KB | 340 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00015}
$Pretitle{265}
$Title{Afghanistan
Chapter 3C.   Infrastructure}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Robert S. Ford}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{afghanistan
government
percent
kabul
soviet
afghan
power
road
labor
transport}
$Date{1986}
$Log{Modern Afghani Art*0001501.scf
Packing Boxes of Candy*0001503.scf
}
Country:     Afghanistan
Book:        Afghanistan, A Country Study
Author:      Robert S. Ford
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1986

Chapter 3C.   Infrastructure

[See Modern Afghani Art: Courtesy Embassy of Afghanistan, Washington DC]

     Afghanistan's networks of transport and power-generating facilities were
built mostly after World War II. Before the major development projects under
Daoud, an observer wrote that "the economic organization of Afghanistan
resembles a wide sea dotted with islands of economic activity, each one more
or less limited to its own local market, primarily because of inadequate
transportation." The first motorable road over the Hindu Kush was finished
only in 1933. The first two development plans of 1956-66 prepared the basic
grid of paved, all-weather roads that integrated the nation's economy to a
limited extent. The production and distribution of electricity also grew
rapidly during this period, although only a fraction of the urban population
had access to it. By 1985 the war was seriously reducing the capacity of the
country's transport and power sectors. At the same time new transport and
power projects planned by the government promised to link Afghanistan more
closely with its neighbor to the north (see fig. 6).

     The dispersion of the Afghan population required mainly low-cost,
low-volume roads. The physical features of Afghanistan made this difficult
because the rocky, mountainous terrain and the harsh climate raised road
construction and maintenance costs. Nonetheless, with substantial foreign
assistance, by 1966 Afghanistan had installed a relatively well-developed
major highway system that joined together the country's major commercial
centers and also linked the country to the outside world. The two superpowers
built roads to tie Afghanistan into their own respective commercial and
economic spheres. Soviet assistance completed a road linking Jabal os Saraj
with Dusti on the Soviet border in 1964. Along this road was located the
1.7-kilometer Salang Tunnel at an altitude of over 3,300 meters above
sea level. The tunnel eliminated about 200 kilometers from the
previous roundabout route between the Soviet border and Kabul. In 1965 the
Soviets finished the road between Jabal os Saraj and Kabul and completed the
highway joining the Soviet border town of Kushka with Qandahar. By 1971 the
Soviets had also built a road extending from Pol-e Khomri through Mazar-e
Sharif to Sheberghan. While the Soviets were linking Afghanistan with their
border towns, the Americans put in roads to join Afghanistan to Pakistan and
Iran. Two roads were completed in 1964 and 1965 extending from Pakistan up to
Qandahar and Kabul. In 1965 the Americans also finished surfacing the road
between Qandahar and Kabul. In 1967 they completed the road between Herat and
Eslem Qaleh on the Iranian border. By 1975, when all the major road projects
were completed, Afghanistan had 17,000 kilometers of roads, of which 9,200
kilometers were all-weather roads. There were still only 2,500 kilometers of
paved highways, primarily running in a great loop from Sheberghan to Herat via
Kabul. Trunk roads extended from this circular network to major population
centers, such as Konduz, Jalalabad, and Gardez, as well as points on the
Soviet, Pakistani, and Iranian borders.

     The establishment of this transportation infrastructure rapidly had an
effect on the country's economy. Before its construction there had not been a
national distribution system but rather autonomous regional markets. Surplus
local production could not be traded nationally because of prohibitive
transport costs. The new road network quickly reduced transport costs,
increased domestic trade between regions, and thus promoted the integration of
the national economy. One of the indications of this trend in the late 1960s
and early 1970s was the sharp decrease in price differentials between regions.
In 1960 prices of the principal commodity traded, wheat, varied as much as 150
percent between regions; by 1966 the variations dropped to approximately 30
percent, and by 1977 prices were roughly equivalent, except for transport
costs. This was a result of the road network that increased market sizes for
many Afghan producers so that they had incentive to increase their
production.

     Although the creation of the road network was the main success of the
Soviet and American development programs in Afghanistan, there were limits to
the economic benefits. Because they country's agriculture and industry
surpluses were so small, the level of domestic trade was relatively low. The
principal beneficiaries of the road network were traders and transport
entrepreneurs, rather than the great majority of people, who lived in the
rural areas. The government put little emphasis on secondary and tertiary
roads joining the rural provinces, towns, villages, and farms with the major
highways. The few roads that were built were usually substandard and
necessitated higher transport costs. Some major towns and surrounding regions,
such as Maymanah and Feyzabad, were not linked with the major highway system
and did not share in the benefits of greater trade opportunities. One detailed
analysis of the Afghan economy even explained the famine of 1971 as resulting
from the country's inability to move surplus grains into the remote regions of
Badakhshan and Hazarajat. The transport sector, therefore, continued to
constitute a serious bottleneck to the economic development of the
hinterlands. The majority of Afghans were located in these areas, and they
still had poor access to outside markets as well as to government services.
They had little incentive to produce at more than a subsistence level, and
their level of productivity remained very low.

     After the 1978 coup the new government gave renewed priority to the
transport and communications sector in its development funds allocation-over
22 percent in 1981 and over 27 percent in 1982. Despite the relatively large
share of the total development expenditures, the government built few new
roads. Instead, spending was concentrated on the creation of five state
transport enterprises, each with 300 imported Soviet Kamaz-type trucks.
Another organization was established for the transport of petroleum products
and was equipped with Tatra and Maz trucks from Czechoslovakia and the Soviet
Union. Along with the creation of these state enterprises, the number of
trucks operated by the public and mixed sectors was projected to rise from
13,200 in 1981 to 13,770 by the end of 1982. Before the establishment of these
state enterprises, the transport sector was dominated by private
entrepreneurs, most of whom owned only one or two trucks of generally small
load capacity.

     The road network was augmented by 41 airports or airfields for domestic
and international travel, again established with substantial Soviet and
American aid. The largest and most important airport was Kabul International
Airport, where traffic doubled to over 100,000 passengers annually between
1969 and 1976. Topographical conditions limited the airport's capacity to
handle wide-bodied jets, and the government had long wanted an alternative
site for a large airport. The Soviets undertook several expansion projects at
the Kabul airport and also built jet airstrips at Mazar-e Sharif, Bagrami,
and Jalalabad. In 1985 the government was engaged in an Af1.6 billion program
to upgrade Kabul airport facilities. The runway was to be lengthened for use
by larger aircraft, and a new terminal and hangars were to be built. Passenger
movement rose to 127,000 in 1982, up from 106,000 in 1976. The United States
had helped