5 billion spent on repairing the Karnali highway, the risk is the same

Similarly, the Surkhet High Court has recently issued an interim order in the name of the government to prevent and reduce the increasing number of vehicle accidents on the Karnali highway. The order was issued by the bench of senior High Court Judge Krishnalal Bhattarai and Judge Khadak Bahadur KC. After the accident escalated, INSEC filed a writ in the court. But there is no sign of immediate improvement in the condition of Karnali highway.

On the night of August 12, the 22 km road from Dailekh Malachour to Hulme in Kalikot was blocked under the Karnali Highway under the Karnali highway due to incessant rain. The highway was blocked for 5 days after the concrete bridge over the Dahi river and the road with the gabion wall built over the Gagane river at a cost of Rs 2 crore last year collapsed. Because of this, more than two dozen trucks carrying apples from Jumla and Tilagufa in Kalikot had to stop at Khadachakra-3 Tadi and Hulm in Kalikot. Similarly, on August 23, the road was blocked for 18 hours when a landslide occurred in Kalikot's Hulm, Esmode and Gagne rivers, and four days later, another landslide occurred in the same place and the road traffic was stopped for another 48 hours.

Small-big landslides in Calikot and Dailekh due to rain have caused great damage. Chief District Officer of Kalikot Ganesh Nepali said that 4 machines of the road department had to be deployed to open the highway blocked by the landslide. "Even if it rains a little, there will be a landslide," he said, "a narrow road, and because of the weak terrain, hundreds of vehicles had to stop when the landslide occurred."

According to the data of the provincial police office, the Surkhet-Jumla road under the Karnali highway was blocked 137 times by landslides and traffic was stopped for 49 days. According to the police, landslides occurred in one place up to 5 times in a day, while landslides occurred in 10 places in one day. According to Top Bahadur Mahtara, in-charge of the District Traffic Police Office, the Kalikot section of the 232 km long Karnali highway is mostly blocked by landslides.

'They sent the vehicle aside, within 1/2 hour the news comes that another landslide occurred,' he said. break It has been almost two decades since the construction of Karnali Highway. In 2060, the army took over the construction of the 85 km road from Dailekh Saigaon to Rachuli in Calikot along the Karnali highway with blasting. Army opened the road track from Surkhet to Jumla on 063 Chait 30 after 3 years of efforts. The road was built up to Saigaon through a contract by the road department and a local citizen group was formed in the Jumla section. According to the data of the then Road Division Office Jumla, about 50 million rupees were spent. Soon after the Surkhet-Jumla road track was opened, there were major accidents. After major accidents in which 42 people were killed in Kitubhir in Dailekh, 28 in Serawada in Calikot, 18 in Gadgadeni in Jumla, 19 in Kalyankadha in Surkhet, 17 in Khidkijeula, night traffic was banned on the highway.

"There are not many minor accidents," says local Kali Bahadur Malla, "The road has been opened, but even now people have to risk their lives to travel." According to the data of the road department, since the opening of the highway, apart from the blackboard and the wall, 10 to 40 million rupees have been spent every year. But the department does not have the data about how much has been spent on the highway since its opening. "Work is being done every year and the budget is being allocated based on the needs," said an engineer who made the Karnali highway an area of ​​work According to Surkhet and Jumla. 22 crores last year, 25 crores in 2079/80 and 23 crores in 2078/79 were spent for maintenance from the regular budget.

The road constructed by the army in 2063 was handed over to the road department in 2066. The road department has spent 1.13 billion rupees on the construction of 14 different bridges on the highway, while the World Bank has already spent about 2 billion rupees on the construction of walls with Otasil technology and walls with safety bars. Engineer Karna Bahadur KC said that the highway is becoming more and more dilapidated due to contractors' laxity, lack of monitoring, and the use of inferior construction materials.

After nearly 80 percent of the black sheet has been removed, Hast Chand, a businessman from Nepalgunj, said that passengers do not want to walk through this highway because it becomes slippery when it rains and when it is sunny. "Narrow road, even if there is a small mistake, the vehicle will fall directly in Karnali," he said that the main reason why tourists do not come to Karnali is the bad condition of the road.

Tourists who have returned to Rara via Karnali highway are also afraid to return. Pawan Lamsal of Dang, who returned from Rara in the first week of June, said, "The road is strange, its pain is known only to those who travel," said, "The narrow road is uneven, there are potholes everywhere, from the time you board the vehicle to the destination, it is a single lane. Even though one vehicle broke down, there was a jam for 4/5 hours.'' He said that since the Sinja Valley and Rara Lake are attracting tourists, it is necessary to make the road up to Jumla a 2-lane road with good quality.

With the help of the World Bank, in 2007, the road sector development project of the Nepal government was used to blacktop the highway at a cost of 1 billion rupees. In the first phase, from Surkhet to Khidkijeula in Dailekh and in the second phase from Khidkijeula to Jumla, Otasil technology was laid by 7 different construction companies. Dharmaraj Tamrakar of Khandachakra Municipality-1 said that the black paper was uprooted within 2 years. "Cheap technology was pitched, but quality work was not done," he said.

Jeevan KC, a bus driver, said that it is very difficult to drive on the highway. He complained that due to the narrow road, the vehicle has to back up and give way to cross. According to him, the road is "one way" in most places. According to him, although the reserve vehicle reaches Jumla from Surkhet in one day, the passenger vehicles stay in Kalikot for one day. According to him, in most places there is only 5 meters of road, and due to the lack of roundabouts, the vehicle has to be backed up and travel through the turns. Kamal Vick, another driver, said that there is a danger of getting into an accident while trying to avoid potholes on roads with potholes and poor terrain. According to him, when the Jumla vehicle was taken from Surkhet, the strap was not broken and the tire was not punctured.

Milan Chhetri, another driver, said that in some places, when the width is only 5 meters, the vehicle has to back up to pass. "It is difficult to pass vehicles in narrow and difficult places," he said. According to him, the bus traveling from Surkhet to Jumla had to stay in Manm on Monday after getting stuck in a long traffic jam.

Lal Bahadur Malla of Khadachakra-8 said that the political parties of Jumla, Mugu and Kalikot who made the election slogan of upgrading the Karnarli highway ignored it after winning the election. He said, "They always raise the slogan of pitching the highway and making it a two-lane highway, but they never care after winning." He complained that there is a compulsion to travel on the highway always trusting in God.

Citizen leaders complain that the government has not paid attention to the construction of the Karnali highway, which is the main 'life line' of nearly 7 lakh residents of the Himalayan districts of Karnali, Kalikot, Jumla, Mugu, Humla and Achham and Bajura in the far west and the western part of Dailekh. 'If the Karnali highway is made fast, half of the days of Karnali people's misery would be over,' said CPN spokesperson Khadka Bahadur Bishwakarma, 'the attention of the state could not be reached.' The government spent 623.6 million 82 thousand rupees for emergency road maintenance through the road board to avoid landslides on the Karnali highway damaged by continuous rains for days. From Dahikhola in Kalikot to Lamra in Jumla, 8 contracts were awarded for widening the road damaged by the landslide, making drains and constructing retaining walls. But due to the delay of the contractor companies, the work was completed only in June last year.

Head of Road Division Office Jumla Chetan Kumar Mandal said that all the roads built last year have been destroyed. According to him, the condition of roads in Gaganekhola, Esmod, Hulm, Serighat, Sunar Khola, Galli, Molfa, Pili, Chaukhola, Khallagad, Rachuli and other places is bad. "Wherever the road has been repaired, the current rain has made it more dangerous, even a vehicle can hardly pass through it," he said . He says that in many places bigger landslides have occurred than before. He said that it will cost at least one billion rupees just to widen the road by removing landslides from damaged areas.

Leela Bahadur Bhandari, the former head of Road Division Office Jumla, says that there is no Karnali highway engineering standard. "In the initial stage, the highway should be two-lane," he said, "because the army worked in a hurry, the standard may not have been met, but no matter how hard we tried, we could not meet that standard." Should be completed in 6 hours. But passengers are now forced to travel up to 24 hours.

The Karnali Highway, which was laid the foundation stone by the then Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala in 2048, was completed only after 15 years of armed conflict and lack of budget. The government handed over the road to the Nepali Army after there was a problem with the construction due to rock formations. During the construction of the Karnali highway, the camp of the Karnali highway road construction team established in 061 Chait was attacked by the Maoists and attacked the Pili camp on 23 July 2062. In the Pili attack, 75 people of the then Nepali Army lost their lives, including paramilitary soldiers who were recruited to dig the road.

Accidents on the rise, lives lost

911 people have died on the highway in a period of almost a decade, according to the provincial police office. 1 thousand 527 people were injured in that accident. In the span of 3 years alone, 301 people have lost their lives on this road and around 800 have been injured. Karnali State Police Chief DIG Arjun Chand Thakuri says that accidents on highways are on the rise due to narrow and difficult roads, overcrowding of passengers, old vehicles, and neglect of traffic rules. 'Accidents are also increasing due to excessive speed,' he said, 'The difficult geography of Karnali also poses a challenge to prevent accidents.' 94 people lost their lives in 341 accidents and 27 people lost their lives in 206 accidents last year. DIG Chand said widening and upgrading the road is necessary to reduce accidents. "Rather than mechanical reasons and human weakness, the main reason for the accident on the Karnali highway was the bad condition of the road," he said. She has registered a proposal of urgent public importance. She registered the proposal with the support of 13 MPs including Kantika Sejuwal, Ammar Bahadur Thapa, Ganesh Parajuli, Sovita Gautam. Similarly, the Surkhet High Court has issued an interim order in the name of the government a week ago to prevent and reduce the increasing number of vehicle accidents on the Karnali highway. The order was issued by the bench of senior High Court Judge Krishnalal Bhattarai and Judge Khadak Bahadur KC. After the accident escalated, INSEC filed a writ in the court.

Photos : Tularam Pandey/Kantipur