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included in the third year of the Plan. (iii) the undertaking of problems the expenses of which are met from the annual budget. In the sphere of road building the Ministry's Department of Labour Corps has been very active throughout the year. The immediate effort was directed at the completion of bridge building and flood defences, and the construction of concrete ramparts at Torkham and Kizil Kala. On the Torkham-Jalalabad highway, 78 kilometers have been made ready for asphalting, work on the latter having by now begun. This work is going ahead as a result of a Project Agreement between the Afghan Government and I.C.A. (signed June 25th, 1958). The entire length of the highway has been graded, and at least 15 cms. of additional material laid on it, to be topped by 3-5 cms. of granite chippings. On the Jalalabad-Kabul highway, work on a stretch of 130 kilometres was completed in spite of many physical difficulties. It is estimated that only 5 per cent. of the preliminary work on this road remains to be done before it is ready for asphalting. 76.8 kilometres of the Kabul-Matak highway to the north have been completed, of which 40 kilometres have been asphalted. The Kizil Kala-Doshi highway, with a total length of 235.6 kilometres was completed in spite of such natural obstacles as hills and gorges, and the fact that climatic conditions for most of the time were almost unbearable. One of the major problems involved in completing the road between Doshi and Kizil Kala has been the construction of the Alchin Bridge on the Kunduz River. The preliminary steps for the construction of this bridge were taken in the second year of the plan, when an agreement was signed with the Techno-Export Agency of the Soviet Union. Construction work began immediately, and before the beginning of the third year the bridge was officially opened. The main advantage of this bridge lies in the fact that the distance between Kunduz and Kizil Kala can now be covered in one hour instead of in eight. The consequent economy in petroleum, the running cost of vehicles, the facilities for trade and transit, not to mention the easier flow of human traffic, all add to the importance of this engineering feat. It may be of interest to know that the length of the bridge is 120 metres, its breadth 8.9 metres, while the maximum weight it is capable of supporting is 60 tons. Salang Highway At present, there is only one road connecting Kabul with the Northern Provinces of Afghanistan. This road was built in 1931 under the reign of King Mohammed Nadir Shah. Since, at the time, Afghanistan was not in a position to undertake difficult road constructions, it was thought best to follow the easiest route from the technical point of view. Thus the road was built from Kabul to Charikar and the Ghorband defile, over the Shibar Pass and through the Shikari defile to Doshi and from there to Pul-i-Khumri, Kunduz and Mazar-i-Sharif. The main handicap of this route is the long detour which it imposes from Charikar to Doshi. A straight line between Charikar and Doshi would cover about 80 km. but the existing road over the Shibar Pass conecting these two points is 250 km. long. There is only one practicable passage through the formidable barrier of the Hindukush on the straight line from Charikar to Doshi, and that is the Salang Pass, at an altitude of 3,648 metres. Even there it will still be necessary to dig a 2 1/2 km.-long tunnel. When the present road to 65