The Road Department and police have been deployed on both sides of the old bridge to prevent overloaded vehicles from operating.
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The Girubari Bridge at Chormara in eastern Nawalparasi along the East-West Highway collapsed on April 30 due to excessive load. The Roads Department, which had set a target of repairing the bridge and operating traffic within 15 days, repaired it and opened it for traffic on June 24. Even though the bridge was supported and opened for traffic, it is not capable of supporting the weight of large vehicles.
Most of the bridges built during the construction of the East-West Highway are in a dilapidated state. As the current vehicles cannot handle the load-bearing capacity, the old bridges are repeatedly broken, causing inconvenience to passengers. Most of the bridges in the eastern Nawalparasi section of the East-West Highway are also dilapidated. Due to this, passengers have to travel through diversions for months due to the problem of bridges collapsing and breaking from time to time.
As the Butwal-Narayangadh road is being expanded, a new bridge is also being built along with this old bridge. Therefore, until the construction of the new bridge is completed, the Road Department and police have been posted on both sides of the old bridge to prevent overloaded vehicles from operating. Freight vehicles are stopped and the load is determined, and if it is found to be overloaded, the goods are unloaded and only the specified weight is allowed to be kept. Notices have been posted on dilapidated and repaired bridges, indicating that vehicles with a load-bearing capacity of only 40 tons per side are allowed to operate. Accordingly, security personnel are guarding the bridge 24 hours a day.
Police Inspector Mohan Khadka of the District Police Office, East Nawalparasi, said that security personnel have been deployed on the bridge and heavy vehicles have not been allowed to ply until the new bridge is built and operational. He said that security personnel should also be deployed on the Girubari Bridge in Chormara and the Arun Khola Bridge around the clock.
Special attention has been paid to the safety of the bridge, saying that if security personnel are not deployed, there will be problems if heavy vehicles pass over the bridge and damage it. Similarly, the Binayi Khola bridge in Dumkibas on the East-West Highway was broken on 26 Poush 2081. The broken bridge has not been repaired yet. Vehicles are moving through the new bridge built during the road expansion at the same place.
The bridges under the Butwal-Narayangadh road section, the 'Trust Bridge', are more than 50 years old. The bridge was built according to the traffic volume and load capacity at the time during the construction of the East-West Highway. The old bridge structure is now unable to handle modern vehicles and vehicles with four times the load-carrying capacity than before. Shiva Khanal, Information Officer of the Eastern Section of the Narayangadh-Butwal Road Expansion Project, said, "The bridge has been protected because it would cause problems if it were damaged."
