It has been three or four years since the two-story slope. The construction period has also been three years. If the work had been done as per the agreement signed in Asad 2078, the construction of the Baglung Municipal Hospital building should have been completed by Asad 20, 2080. But till now, this hospital building is incomplete.

Ward Chairman Narayan Sharma Poudel said that the contractor for the under-construction building in Paiyumpata, Baglung Municipality-13, has been stranded after not working despite repeated extensions. The second extension of the deadline by Mahalaxmi Jugal Joint Construction Company expired last Asad. The third deadline is until next Asad. However, only 55 percent of the hospital building construction work has been completed so far, said Engineer Sobin Gharti. 'We have repeatedly requested.' But the contractor does not come and do the work,' said Gharti, 'sometimes they do it as if they were working with 10/12 workers, and the same situation happens again.' He said that the work, which was 50 percent completed two years ago, has only increased by 5 percent in the last 24 months.

Baglung Municipality had signed a contract agreement for this building in Asad 2078 for Rs 128.7 million. Accounts Officer Prem Prasad Sharma said that the contractor has received Rs 45.3 million payment so far. According to Ram Prasad Khanal, head of the municipal health department, this is a 15-bed hospital.

Once the building is completed, 30 health workers including an MGDP doctor, 3 medical officers, 4 staff nurses, 4 health assistants can be sent to serve this area. ‘Even though we have the approved staff, we have not been able to make the demand because the building has not been built,’ Khanal said, ‘Once the city hospital is built, the residents of the city will get treatment services near their homes.’

If this hospital is completed, the residents of Paiyumpata, Narayansthan, Amlachaur, Bhakunde, Rayadanda, and other areas of Jaimini Municipality in the Galkot area will also get treatment services nearby. Khanal said that if this hospital comes into operation with the specified staff, services including general surgery will be operated here.

Naresh Ojha, the head of the contractor company, claimed that the work could not be done due to lack of budget. ‘There was a lack of budget in the first phase, so the pace of work could not be increased, and its impact has been felt so far,’ Ojha said, ‘The work will be completed if the budget is fully paid by the city.’ He said that there is a payment problem in the project run by the municipality in partnership with the federal budget. He has repeatedly claimed that the work can be done by increasing the number of workers.

According to Ward Chairman Sharma, the contractor has been repeatedly delaying the work, sometimes citing Dashain-Tihar, sometimes elections, and sometimes monsoon. Ojha claimed that he would send workers again, saying that the election prevented him from working. Mayor Basanta Kumar Shrestha said that if the construction work is completed, there will be no problem in payment from the municipality. He said that the work has been left unfinished for four/five years and cannot be attributed to budget reasons.

Deputy Mayor Raju Khadka said that the contractor has not worked even though he planned to pay in the previous year's budget. 'We do not have a budget problem, we can easily pay for the work done,' Khadka said, 'In fact, the budget has been frozen several times due to not being able to pay.'