Black paper collapsed within a month

"After blacklisting, most of the places are in ruins, so you can't drive your car, you can't even travel on foot," said Hariraj Lowa, a local. The Jorpokhari Gopetar section, which is in the humid region, was blacked out when the rains started. He said that the condition of the road is due to the fact that vehicles with higher load carrying capacity were driven.

Fidim-based Sanjeev Construction Services has signed an agreement with Division Road Office Ilam for 3 million rupees to pave eight kilometers of roads. Vijay Tamang, a local driver, said that one kilometer of the road connecting Jorpokhari to Gopetar out of eight kilometers has been destroyed so that it is unusable. "When he came a month ago, the work was going on in full swing, now there is no sign of black paper, we had to dig the car in potholes and mud," he said.

Another driver, Milan Biswakarma, saw that the road was destroyed within two days of the black sheeting and complained that they did not listen to the people's representatives and builders even when they informed them. "The road has started collapsing, when the fault was discovered and requested to be repaired, the contractor turned away saying that he would go ahead, looking at the situation," Vishwakarma said.

It is mentioned in the agreement between the builders and the road division Ilam that 2 cm of black tar should be laid on the road . Birendra Shrestha, the owner of Sanjeev Construction Services, who took the responsibility of laying the black sheet, claims that the black sheet was washed away by the water that rose underground due to excessive rain. Shrestha said, "If the poor quality work was done, the entire 8 km road would have been damaged. This problem has occurred only in one kilometer of the road. It would be better to do a technical study to find out why and how the black paper broke rather than the contractor's weakness." Shrestha said.

Engineer Bipin Dhungana of the Road Division Ilam, who was given the responsibility of monitoring the work, said that the builders should redo black on the ruined road as the work was not completed. "We have stopped the payment after technical assessment of the damaged road section, we will not delay until the work is done again," Dhungana said. Around 300 passengers and freight vehicles pass through this road every day.