Forty-four contracts for roads and irrigation projects that have not progressed for a long time have been terminated. A notice was issued on Monday under the Kathmandu Road Division that 25 contracts had been terminated.

Earlier, 19 contracts under the Water Resources and Irrigation Department have been terminated. Subodh Kumar Devkota, head of the Kathmandu Road Division Office, said that the contracts were terminated after there was no progress in the work despite repeated time-limits.

‘We gave many opportunities to work,’ Devkota said, ‘We terminated the contract by initiating the process of terminating the contract after there was no progress in the work.’ According to him, a public notice was published on 11 Kartik asking, ‘Why terminate the contracts for 57 contracts that had not made any progress?’ ‘Of which, we have already issued a notice that the contracts for 25 contracts have ended,’ he said, ‘No progress has been seen in 32 more, we will decide on those contracts soon.’ Devkota said that there are old contracts with contracts signed between the fiscal years 2067/68 and 2079/80.

Chief Devkota said that the contract was canceled as per the provisions of the Public Procurement Act as the explanation submitted by the construction entrepreneur was not satisfactory. Devkota said that action will be taken to terminate the contract agreement and blacklist it as per the provisions of the law and recover the performance security, deposit amount, advance payment security and 10 percent interest on the advance payment amount as well as recover the remaining work expenses as government dues. The office has also instructed the construction entrepreneur to appear at the office within 15 days.

The notice states that the contract was canceled due to the fact that the entrepreneur who took the contract, who did not show interest in completing the construction and left the construction work incomplete and abandoned, was not physically present at the work site for a long time and did not fundamentally violate the contract, did not have a deadline, and did not settle the work. So far, according to the notice issued by various road divisions and planning offices, 229 contracts are sick. Of these, only the Kathmandu Road Division has terminated the contract so far. Road Department spokesperson Shyam Bahadur Khadka said that other offices are issuing notices and seeking clarification from construction entrepreneurs. “The explanation submitted by the construction entrepreneurs regarding the delay in the contract for which the notice has been issued is being studied,” he said. “If it needs to be terminated after the study, a decision will be made on it.” According to him, some construction entrepreneurs have started work after the notice was issued.

Problems have been seen in many old contracts. The Road Department has stated that the termination process has been initiated after there has been no progress in such contracts for a long time. The final stage will be to ensure that the work is completed by the company that took the contract and only if it fails, the termination process will be initiated, says Road Department Director General Vijay Jaisi. ‘We will get the work done from the person who took the contract,’ he said. ‘Even after breaking the contract, it takes time to make a new contract, the cost increases, so we will get the work done from the old company that took the contract, even if we have to pay a fine according to the rules and laws.’

He said that the process of breaking the contract will be taken forward as a last resort only if the entrepreneurs do not work even after giving the opportunity. Not only roads, 19 irrigation contracts have been broken. According to the Department of Water Resources and Irrigation, the contract of the Sunkoshi-Marin Diversion Multipurpose Project has also been broken.