The deadline has now been extended until 5 Mangsir 083 after the work was not completed within the contract period.
What you should know
There is a budget shortage for the Suryabinayak-Dhulikhel road expansion along the Araniko Highway. The risk of the work being affected has increased as the budget for the current fiscal year has not been met as per the demand.
The total distance of the road connecting the two districts of Bhaktapur and Kavre is 15.8 kilometers. Vehicles use this road to reach the eastern hills and Terai districts via the BP Highway.
This road has been divided into two sections and has been contracted. One of the sections is Suryabinayak-Sanga. The distance of this section is 7.5 km. Bishnu Prasad Khanal, engineer of the Suryabinayak-Dhulikhel Road Project, said that preparations for blacktopping have now begun on this section. ‘There is a plan to complete blacktopping on both sections by Asar,’ he said. ‘If there are no problems during the construction and there is no budget shortage, there is no problem in working according to the target.’
According to him, Rs 600 million has been allocated for the road and Rs 100 million for bridge construction for the current fiscal year. ‘We are working after requesting an additional Rs 150 million after the road budget was exhausted, the pace of work has increased now,’ he said, ‘We still need two billion rupees, the work has not been stopped due to the budget.’
He claims that since it is the working season, most of the work will be completed in the current fiscal year. ‘There is no money to pay immediately after the work is done, payment will have to be made before the elections,’ he said, ‘If the construction business could be paid on time after the work is completed, the construction business would have worked better, so there was no budget shortage in the construction.’
The contract for Suryabinayak-Sangakhand was won by Ashish-Kumar Shrestha-Bandhan Bhagwati JV on 24 Paush 2079. The contract amount is 3.88 billion 93 million rupees. The progress of this section is 48 percent.
The deadline ended on 27 Paush and has been extended to 29 Falgun 083. Although the progress of the work on this section is good, the main problem is the budget, said Vijay Jaishi, Director General of the Roads Department. ‘Talks are being held with the Ministry of Finance for the budget,’ he said, ‘The problem is that only Rs 700 million has been allocated out of the Rs 3 billion budget requested in the current fiscal year.’ He said that preparations are underway to transfer the funds from the work that has been reduced due to allocation to other projects.
Joint Secretary and Spokesperson of the Ministry of Finance Tanka Prasad Pandey said that there will be no budget shortage in the road project. ‘Additional budget has been requested from the project, work will not be stopped due to budget,’ he said, ‘We will not allow budget shortage in ongoing projects.’ He also urged the project to move forward without stopping the pace of work.
Another section under similar work is Sanga-Dhulikhel. The distance of this section is 8.3 km and the construction progress is 65 percent. Two and a half km of the road has been blacktopped. The project reported that two km of the 6-lane road has been blacktopped. The contract for this section was won by Lama Construction on 27 Mangsir 2079 for Rs 4.56 billion. The deadline expired on 27th Mangsir and has now been extended until 23rd Mangsir 083. ‘If there is no budget shortage, the progress of the work will be progressing well,’ said Khanal, the project engineer.
Separate contracts have been awarded for the three bridges on this road section. The contract for the bridge has been taken by Himdung and Thokar-Ramjanaki JV. While the road construction is more than half complete, the construction of the bridges has not yet gained momentum. The project, which was awarded a single package for three bridges, said.
The construction of two bridges has not even started. Work is underway on only one bridge. The contract was awarded under the design and build technique. According to the agreement signed on 6th Chaitra 2079, the bridge construction should be completed by 5th Asoj 2082. The contract amount for the three bridges, including VAT, is 575 million rupees.
The deadline has now been extended until 5th Mangsir 083 after the work was not completed within the agreement period. Jagati Bridge is in Bhaktapur and Punyamata and Mahadev Khola Bridge are in Kavre. Work is underway on the Mahadev Khola Bridge and the construction progress is 10 percent. There are talks that the initial designs of the Punyamata and Jagati bridges will be reconsidered and construction will finally begin. ‘Camps have been set up for the construction of both bridges,’ said Engineer Khanal, ‘They are not very long bridges, and once construction begins, it will not take long to complete.’
