Netra Prakash Bhandary (Ph.D. Eng.)
Professor (Civil Engineering)
Ehime University, Japan
First and foremost, I feel honored to greet you all through this message. Through this message, I would also like to extend my sincerest appreciations to all member colleagues of Nepal Geotechnical Society who have trusted me with this highest position in the society, and have bestowed upon me and my team this honor and right to sketch an efficient and improved road map of this society for a strong base building of geotechnical engineering field in the nation and the region.
Needless to repeat that geotechnical engineering is one of the most important fields of civil engineering, and it will not be too much to state that it is the foundation of all civil engineering structures on earth. Unfortunately, however, in most developing nations, this field is yet to gain momentum in terms of research as well as practice. In Nepal, most engineering structures are still only considered safe in terms of above-ground structural soundness but do not truly consider sub-surface or underground design safety. Whatever we have so far in the country have been designed through a thumb rule because we still lack a large part of design standards and parametric investigation methods and guidelines.
Professional societies have always played a vital role in streamlining working standards, teaching contents, practice guidelines and methods, learning and lessons, and so on. Despite being established in mid 1990s, however, Nepal Geotechnical Society has not been able to consolidate its base in the country, particularly in terms of making it mandatory for all civil engineering projects to go through geotechnical design standards, because of a number of reasons. How to link our practices with the world standards and local issues is one of the major responsibilities of all geotechnical engineers in Nepal and Nepal Geotechnical Society
As a national member society of International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE), Nepal Geotechnical Society has well established its name in the world. ISSMGE presidents and vice presidents have also visited Nepal Geotechnical Society and extended their full support for organizational development. Yet, we need to put more efforts to revive our national activities and establish ourselves as a strong education-, research- and practice-based engineering society in the nation.
I and my team in the executive committee have already published our program plan for two years, and through this message, we commit again to our member colleagues that we will strictly follow our plan of activities in addition to some necessary organizational and administrative changes and revitalization. We hope all our member colleagues will extend their full support to us while we will be in the office.
Thank you!
Netra Prakash Bhandary (Ph.D. Eng.)
President, Nepal Geotechnical Society
Professor (Civil Engineering)
Ehime University
Japan
Profile details available at: Organizational Profile, researchmap, Google Scholar, Research Gate
