This work has progressed after the Ministry of Forests and Environment gave its approval to temporarily lay mosaic tiles.
What you should know
The laying of 'mosaic' tiles has begun on the road section inside Chitwan National Park that enters Madi Municipality in the southern part of Chitwan.
To make the road dust-free, Madi Municipality has temporarily started laying mosaic tiles in a 40-meter section of the road from Vanakatta Checkpost to Dhruv Post in the first phase.
Madi Municipality Mayor Tarakaji Kumari Mahato informed that the work of laying mosaic tiles has been started through the Consumers' Committee with a budget of Rs 1 million. 'Currently, we are laying mosaic tiles on a 40-meter road section as a test, and if successful, we will release additional budget in this fiscal year and do more work,' Mayor Mahato said.
This work has been progressed after the Ministry of Forest and Environment gave its consent to lay mosaic tiles temporarily. Later, permission will have to be obtained from the Ministry of Forests again to proceed with further work. 'We have now received temporary permission from the Ministry of Forests, and the work of laying mosaic tiles will proceed after preparing an environmental impact assessment study report to proceed with further work,' Mayor Mahato said.
The municipality is preparing to take this work forward on an additional 300 meters of road if the first phase of laying mosaic tiles is successful. The municipality is also managing the necessary budget for that.
The municipality is going to take forward the work of laying mosaic tiles as an alternative to make the roads inside the park dust-free.
The issue of blacktopping the road section inside the park has become an election agenda during every election. The residents of Madi have been demanding blacktopping for a long time, saying that the gravel road inside the park is causing problems in movement. But the blacktopping work has not been done in this park, which is listed on the World Heritage List.
During the Genji movement held last Bhadra, the youth of Madi were deployed to expand the road inside the park. Without vandalizing any government office in Madi, the youths were busy building roads to the park as a protest. At that time, under pressure from the youth, the municipality had allocated 50 million rupees in a single day to make Madi's roads dust-free by holding an executive meeting and a municipal assembly.
Accordingly, the municipality has now moved forward with the work of laying 'mosaic' tiles after studying various places. Youth activist Bharat Dhakal said that if this work, which was started as a trial, is successful, he will press for the work to be carried out on all road sections within the park. 'We had allocated 50 million rupees to build roads within the park during the Genji rebellion. Since the work of laying mosaic tiles on the main road section is new, work has now started in a few places for testing. If it is successful, we will press for the work to be carried out from the entire allocated budget,' Dhakal said.
