The work has not been able to pick up pace as the design has not been finalized yet. The deadline has now been extended by one year after the work was not completed as per the initial agreement.
What you should know
Although the contract for the Suryabinayak-Dhulikhel road expansion and bridge construction was awarded in the same year, the construction of the two bridges has not yet begun.
The road expansion work is half-completed, but the construction of only one bridge has started, and the progress is only 10 percent. The distance of the road that has been expanded to four lanes is 15.8 kilometers. It has been divided into two sections and contracted. The three bridges have been contracted separately. The contract for which has been taken by Himdung & Thokar-Ramjanaki JV. Himdung & Thokar Company belongs to Congress leader and former Chief Minister of Bagmati Province Bahadur Singh Lama. However, the progress in the contract taken by his company is low.
The project engineer Vivek Pandey said that the three bridges were contracted in a single package. ‘The contract for this has been done under the design and build technique,’ he said, ‘That is why its design will also be done by the construction contractor and the work will be done by him.’ The contract agreement was signed on Chaitra 6, 2079. According to the agreement, the work should be completed by Asoj 2082. The work has not been able to gain momentum as the design has not been finalized yet. The contract for three bridges was signed for Rs 575 million including VAT. After the work was not completed as per the initial agreement, the deadline has now been extended by one year.
The project says that since it is a small bridge, the construction contractor will work diligently and complete it within the extended time. The traffic police say that more than 10,000 small and large vehicles ply this road daily. But there is no progress in the construction of the bridge on this road. The project has been blaming the construction contractor and the construction contractor for the delay. Kulman Ghising, Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation, Physical Infrastructure and Transport and Urban Development, has only monitored this road twice.
He expressed concern about the delay in the construction of the bridge and directed to hold discussions with the project chief, the Director General of the Road Department, and the contractor to complete the construction quickly. One bridge under the road falls in Bhaktapur and two in Kavre. According to the project, the Jagati bridge is in Bhaktapur, while the Punyamata and Mahadev Khola bridges fall in Kavre.
The locals in Jagati wanted a straight bridge to be built, and the river was so steep that it was designed accordingly. Due to which the locals protested and did not allow the work to be done as per the original design, the project says. ‘After there was a problem in the initial design of the Jagati bridge, the construction contractors are re-designing it, and it will be submitted to the Road Department for approval soon,’ said Engineer Pandey. ‘In the Punyamata Khola bridge, the locals said that the height of the bridge was too high in the previous design, but later they asked to reduce the height and re-designing it has been submitted to the Road Department.’
Work is underway on the Mahadev Khola bridge and its progress is only 10 percent. ‘The design of Punyamata will be approved within the next 8/9 days and the design of Jagati Bridge will be submitted by the construction contractor within a week,’ he said.
Nirmal Sitaula, director of Himdung & Thokar, one of the companies that took the contract for the bridge, said that due to the delay in getting the design approved by the Road Department, they could not work on time. ‘This is a design and build contract, after we submit the design, the Road Department will approve it, we will submit the detailed design within 6 months and then the design should be approved within three months,’ he said, ‘but it took 18 months to get the design approved in a 30-month project.’ He said that although there was a lot of delay in getting the design approved by the Road Department in the beginning, now after Kulman Ghising became the minister, people are starting to show interest.
‘Last October, the locals had problems with the Jagati Khola bridge and were forced to redesign it,’ he said, ‘It would have been better if they had looked at the design and allowed the work to begin quickly, but now that the minister came and asked why there was a delay, the project has shown interest, and finally the department has started looking into it properly.’
He said that there was no problem in starting the work as the design of the Punyamata Khola bridge was approved by the Road Department within a week. ‘If the minister has shown interest in moving the work forward and the problems that arise are resolved, there will be no problem in building the bridge,’ he said.
The construction of the bridge has been delayed due to obstacles from the locals, design changes and construction contractors, said Bijay Kumar Mahato, head of the Suryabinayak-Dhulikhel Road Project. ‘The locals did not allow the work to be done as per the original design of the holy mother, later it had to be redesigned, that is why there was a delay,’ he said, ‘There are four ward offices located nearby in Jagati, as per the original design, the work was not allowed to be done from those ward offices, the design has been sent for approval again after getting the agreement from the ward.’ He said that the construction businessmen delayed the work even after showing it to the locals.
The road expansion work is also slow. As the initial deadline is about to end, the overall construction progress is only 50 percent. It has been divided into two sections and the contract has been divided into two sections.
The first section is Suryabinayak-Sanga. The distance of this section is 7.5 km. The contract for this section was won by Ashish-Kumar Shrestha-Bandhan Bhagwati JV on 24th Poush 2079. The contract amount is 3 billion 889.3 million rupees. The progress of this section is 42 percent and the deadline is only until 27th Poush. As the deadline approaches, the progress of this section has not even reached 50 percent. The road is finally being blacktopped.
The next section is Sanga-Dhulikhel. The distance of this section is 8.3 km. Two km of the road has been blacktopped in Dhulikhel. Lama Construction won the contract for the section on Mangsir 27, 2079 for Rs 4.56 billion. The deadline for this section, which has 55 percent construction progress, ends on Mangsir 27. The road has been widened to four lanes after 25 years of its construction.
‘The deadlines for both sections are ending,’ said Project Chief Mahato, ‘The construction contractors have demanded an extension of 500 days, but that much time cannot be given. The amount of time to be extended is under discussion.’ He said that the construction contractors have given a schedule for completing the blacktop work in the current fiscal year, although only minor work remains. The budget should be managed accordingly. "Only Rs 700 million has been allocated for the current fiscal year," he said. "We need about Rs 4 billion. We have already informed the Ministry of Finance about this through physical means."
