Delay in Muglin-Ambukhareni road contract

Due to the narrow roads, the risk of accidents is high. The contract has not yet been managed for 8 and a half kilometers. Chudaraj Dhakal, project director of the Directorate of Projects (ADB) said that preparations are being made to proceed with the road construction contract process.

"The purchase plan has been prepared and submitted to the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport," he said, "Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was not done before." We have prepared it again and sent it to the Ministry of Forestry and Environment. He said that as soon as the EIA is passed by the Forestry Ministry, they are preparing to invite the contract by the second week of December after informing the Ministry of Finance.

'Earlier, an EIA report was prepared to build a road from Muglin to Kurintar, 400 meters across, Muglin Bazar residents opposed it,' he said, 'Muglin Bazar is the road division's land, there is no problem as there is no real estate, this is the concrete bridge. We are preparing to build a road from across the road.''

The road on the other side is narrow, there are many rocks and there are Marsyangdi Powerhouses, so a road is going to be built from there to exit nearby. According to the Detailed Project Report (DPR), its construction cost is estimated to be Rs 5.3 billion. It will be built with loan assistance from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Marsyangdi Powerhouse and complex topography will not build new road towards Wari. Dhakal said that work will be done only in the places that need to be repaired and improved. At 400 meters from Marsyangdi Powerhouse, a concrete bridge will be constructed over the Marsyangdi River to connect the road to Wari. And two lane road will be built across.

Ambukhareni-Jamune 1st (East) and Jamune-Pokhara 2nd (West) are divided into two sections and the road upgrading has been started with the loan support of ADB. It was contracted in the financial year 077/78. The distance from Ambukhaireni to Pokhara is 80.33 km. Chief Dhakal said that not much work could be done in the eastern section due to the rains. "The overall progress of this section is good," he said, "After the rains, more work will be done to increase the progress." So far, the overall physical progress of the Ambukhareni-Pokhara road extension has been 48 percent.

In the Beas Municipality-12 Ghansikuwa of Tanahun, which falls in this section, a landslide fell from about 50 meters above the road on Wednesday evening and the traffic was stopped. After 24 hours of the landslide, one-way traffic has started on Thursday evening. Dhakal said that it took time to move away because of the big landslide.

Ambukhaireni-Jamune section has 65 percent construction progress and Jamune-Pokhara section has 30 percent progress so far. The initial deadline for Ambukhaireni-Jamune section was 081 Baisakh. Now the deadline has been extended till October. The deadline for Jamune-Pokhara section is only till 12 August 081. "Since the deadline of this section is about to expire, it has been decided to extend it," he said.

The contract for the first phase was taken by China Construction Company Corporation. Its distance is 41.45 km. The contract for the second section up to Jamune-Pokhara Seti Bridge was taken by Yan Hui Construction. Its distance is 38.88 km. According to Dhakal, the head of the project, out of the total distance of 80.33 km, 32 km has 4 lanes and 21 km has been paved with two lanes. The road will be divided into 6/6 lane service lane with 60.24 km two lanes, 20.09 km with 4 lanes. 29 bridges, 281 culverts, drains and other structures will be constructed in the project.

The contract for the first phase is 6 billion 21 million 31 million and the second phase is 7 billion 40 million 46 million rupees. The contract amount of both sections is 13 billion 61 crore 77 million rupees. The contract has been awarded to upgrade the road from 4 to 6 lanes and construct 7 major and 22 minor concrete bridges.