The contract process was canceled in the last week of December after 16 km out of 29 km were flooded
Pushpalal (Madhyapahari) road in Budhigandaki submergence area has been stalled. Under the Madhyapahari road, the work of 16 km of Dhading and 500 meters of road towards Gorkha has not progressed.
41 km in Dhading and 62 km in Gorkha are under Madhyapahari. Out of the 41 kilometers of Dhading, the road construction work of 16 kilometers from Jaljale to Arughat Bazar in Tripurasundari rural municipality, which is in the sub area, has not progressed. Last May, the contract process for the 29 km road from Katunje in Netrawati Rural Municipality of Dhading to Arughat Bazar in Tripurasundari was started.
Ishwar Bahadur Rizal, Head of Madhyapahari Highway Planning Office, Palungtar, said that the contract process was canceled in the last week of November after 16 km out of 29 km was flooded. He said that the contract was canceled according to the project's request not to proceed with the work in the hydroelectric submergence area of Budhigand.
According to Rizal, preparations are being made to change the alignment of the roads in the flooded areas. "After the source was confirmed, we took out a single contract for 29 km, the alignment of 16 km that is inundated has not been fixed yet," he said.
Out of the 41 kilometers in Dhading, the office is working on black paper on 13 kilometers from Gharyanghurung to Katunje, the border area of Nuwakot. Raju Upreti, Chairman of Tripurasundari Rural Municipality of Dhading, said that the road was blocked when the contract process was canceled after reaching the final stage. "We ran to many places because the work of this road had to be started soon, after the contract process started, it was finally cancelled," he said, "It is not certain when the flood will happen, the development work has stopped receiving budget from the union and the state."
The Chairman of Arughat Rural Municipality, Raju Gurung, said that despite the request to continue the work by upgrading 500 meters of Arughat market area towards Gorkha, which is in the submergence area of Budhigand, the work has not been done. "The work of the Budhigandaki project has not progressed. When the construction of the project will start and when it will sink, we proposed that we should only work on connecting the road for convenience in the neighborhood, but the work has not progressed," he said.
Madhyapahari Highway Planning Office, Palungtar is working by separating different sections for the 230 km road black paper under Nuwkot, Dhading, Gorkha and Lamjung. 66 crores have been allocated for the current financial year for road upgrading and black paper in four districts.
The work of two sections of the 62 km under Madhyapahari highway in Gorkha has been stalled due to the delay of the contractor. The contractor company MP SCF ACC JV signed a contract on 10th January 2072 for the 16 km black road from Okhle to Nivel. The term of the contractor has been extended for the sixth time in 9 years. When the last extended deadline expired on December 5, the physical progress of the road has reached 89 percent.
Govindra Shrestha, information officer of the office, said that the work was not completed on time due to the delay of the contractor. The work on the Masane Thanti-Palungtar section, which has been extended until next March, is only 55 percent complete. Himjung Pacific JV has been entrusted with the construction of this section. The remaining three sections of Gorkha under Madhyapahari have been completed. If the road is not built on time, the locals are suffering from dusty roads in winter and muddy roads in rainy season.
