The Syafrubensi-Rasuwagadhi road connecting China will be closed for 15 days for upgrading. Due to the geographical situation, the road will be closed for work. The road will be closed for 15 days from 18 Chaitra, said Krishnanath Ojha, Planning Chief of the Galchhi-Trishuli-Mailung-Syafrubensi-Rasuwagadhi Road Planning Office, Bidur.

‘The Chinese side has demanded that the road be closed for 15 days a month,’ he said, ‘We will work by closing the road for 15 days every one or two months.’ The road was cut off from below by floods during the monsoon season of last Ashar. ‘The road was blocked due to landslides in some places,’ he said, ‘Now the road will be closed and a wall will be installed.’ 

The Chinese team has set up a camp and started installing a crusher plant. ‘A crusher plant has been set up to extract gravel,’ he said, ‘and now the construction will proceed after closing the road.’ The Rasuwa customs checkpoint will also be affected after the road is closed. Ready-made goods and construction materials are currently being imported through this checkpoint. 

The upgrade of the Syafrubensi-Rasuwagadhi road has finally begun 7 years after the agreement between the officials of Nepal and China. An implementation agreement was signed between the officials of the two countries in 2019 to upgrade the road with a grant from the Chinese government. But the upgrade work has not yet begun. The Chinese side has set up a camp for construction since last December 17 and has started the work. 

The distance from Syafrubensi to Rasuwagadhi is 15.5 kilometers. The Chinese company Xichang Tianlu has come to Nepal with a contract for the upgrade of the road, with a contract amount of 6.5 billion rupees. The construction period has been set at 39 months. In the meantime, the work could not progress due to the need for tax exemption on construction materials and goods imported from China. It took the Ministry of Finance 6 months to get this approved, and after approval, the Chinese team came to work. 

According to the Road Department, tax exemption has been granted on stones, gravel, and sand used in construction. This road, which connects China as a trade border, needs to be upgraded to two lanes. Currently, due to the narrowness of the road due to floods and landslides, cargo vehicles carrying ready-made goods from the Rasuwagadhi border crossing have been taking risks to reach Syafrubensi. 

The floods and landslides that occurred in Ashar last June have damaged various sections of the road. The Rasuwagadhi border crossing was closed since Ashar last June after the concrete bridge over the Lhende River connecting Nepal-China was washed away. The border crossing was operational from 17 Poush after about 6 months. The border crossing became operational after China built a temporary bailey bridge over the Lhende River. Tulsi Prasad Bhattarai, Chief Officer of Rasuwa Customs Office, said that the revenue collection will not be as per the target after the border crossing, which was closed for a long time after the monsoon, is closed again. 

Similarly, even though the government has decided to exempt construction materials and goods coming through customs, the work on the expansion of the second section of the Ring Road has not gained momentum. The decision to exempt construction materials during the expansion of the second section of the Ring Road was made in the cabinet meeting on February 12. Arjun Prasad Aryal, Deputy Director General of the Road Department, said that further work will proceed after officials from the two countries sign the implementation agreement. 

‘The decision on tax exemption has been made. Since the Chinese Embassy needs to be requested through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to prepare a document covering this issue, the file has been sent to the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport,’ he said, ‘Now the ministry will send it to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the Ministry of Finance.’ He said that the Chinese team will write one line in English and then in Chinese, so the department is sending it there because it is unable to do that. 

‘It won’t take long, after the implementation agreement is signed, the design will be finalized and the contract process will move forward,’ he said, ‘The signing will be completed within two weeks, then the design will come. After it is approved, the contract process will move forward.’ He said that the contract process is expected to be finalized and the work will start within Baisakh. 

A Chinese technical team had come to Nepal on Baisakh 6 to survey the second section of the ring road. The team spent two and a half months doing the survey work for the design. Although the survey was conducted for a distance of 8.2 kilometers, the department has stated that the distance will not reach the Basundhara culvert. The road expansion work will be done only near Basundhara Chowk. As per the design, a concrete bridge will be built at Dhungedhara. Three flyovers will be made disabled-friendly.