On 31 Jestha, Infrastructure Development Minister Sunil Lamsal was returning from Dhangadhi. After receiving complaints about the delay in the construction, Minister Lamsal started visiting various sections of the Nagdhunga-Muglin road to understand the status and progress of the construction.

He said that the failure to move the electricity poles on time in the Naubise-Malekhu-Muglin section had hampered the work and asked the contractor not to break his legs. This instruction given to the project chief was criticized. Construction entrepreneurs protested. MPs questioned in Parliament. Minister Lamsal clarified: That is not my intention.

After all, why is there a delay in moving the electricity poles even when half of the road upgrade and expansion work is complete? Where are the delays due to not moving the electricity poles on time? When Kantipur investigated the main highways, it was found that even though half of the road work was completed, the pole removal work had not been completed. The Nepal Electricity Authority, which awarded the contract for four roads, the contractor, the contractor for the contract, and the contractor for the pole removal were found to be responsible for this. First, let's talk about the Nagdhunga-Muglin road section, which has the most traffic jams.

The total distance upgraded for this section is 94.66 kilometers. It has been divided into three sections and contracted. The first section, Nagdhunga-Naubise, is 12.26 kilometers, the second section Naubise-Malekhu, is 43.54 km, and the third section Malekhu-Muglin is 38.86 km. The second layer of blacktop has been completed in the Nagdhunga-Naubise road section. There is still 6.26 km left. A sky bridge is under construction in this section and the overall construction progress is 88 percent. In the Naubise-Malekhu section, the work of moving the poles has not yet been completed.

The contract for this section has been won by ZICG-Sharma-Lama JV for 5.33 billion 19 million. The contract agreement for this section was signed on 14 Baisakh 2079, but the deadline has been extended to Asoj 2083. So far, the construction progress is 60 percent, said Keshav Prasad Ojha, head of the eastern section of the Nagdhunga-Muglin road project. He complained that the problem was due to the failure to move the electricity poles.

‘A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed with the Nepal Electricity Authority in 2079 to remove the electricity poles,’ he said, ‘75 poles still remain to be removed.’ 

The contract to move the poles from Naubise to Muglin has been awarded to Sohan Construction. ‘As the poles were not moved on time, the road has to be blacktopped only on the available width,’ he said. ‘Construction entrepreneurs have complained that they were not able to work because the poles were not moved.’ He said that there is a risk of accidents when working without poles. ‘If the work had not been done even after moving the poles, the contractor could have been blamed for not doing the work,’ he said. ‘Even if there were other reasons for the delay, moving the poles would have been considered the reason for the delay.’ He said that money would be transferred to the authority’s account as per the agreement.

More than 12,000 vehicles ply this road daily. The progress of the Malekhu-Muglin section is comparatively low. One of the reasons for the slow progress in this section too is the delay in moving the electricity poles on time.

The work has been delayed because the pole-moving company did not move 107 poles, said Sajna Adhikari, head of the Nagdhunga-Muglin Road Project, West Section. ‘The work has not been completed because the poles have not been moved in Muglin and Malekhu Bazaar. There are many poles in Malekhu Bazaar,’ she said, ‘There is also a problem in the Fisling-Chumlingtar section.’ Currently, preparations are being made to blacktop the Mauwakhola to Jawang Khola section. She said that although it was decided during the discussion held at the Ministry of Infrastructure Development a few days ago that the poles could be moved within seven days, the company responsible for moving them has not arrived yet.

Sohan Construction has also taken on the work of moving the poles in this section. The project says that the MOU does not specify when the poles can be moved. Due to this, the company that took the contract has not completed the work on time. The overall progress of this section is 45 percent. The contract was awarded to Sharma-ZICG for Rs 4.8059 billion. According to the contract agreement signed on 15 Paush 2079, the work should be completed by 2082 Paush. However, after it was not completed, the deadline was extended until 15 Ashad 2083, but preparations are being made to extend the deadline again as the work has not been completed. The contract for all these three sections was awarded with the support of a fully concessional loan from the World Bank.

Similarly, the road section where electricity poles are yet to be moved is Kakadbhitta-Laukahi. The distance of the Kakadbhitta-Laukahi road on the East-West Highway under the Asian Highway is 95.76 km. In this section, three packages have been made for the road side and two packages for the bridge side. However, the progress is not as expected. One reason for the low progress is the failure to move the electricity poles on time. So far, the overall progress is only 37 percent. The 45 km section from Kakadbhitta in Jhapa to Sitapuri falls under the first package. The contract for this section has been taken by Ivraskan-Kalika JV. The contract amount for this section is 10.694 billion rupees. The contract for all sections, including roads and bridges, was signed on 2 Kartik 2080.

However, the construction order was given on 19 Magh 2080 (2 February 2024). The planning office has stated that the time period will be calculated from the date of giving the order. So far, 914 poles out of 2,422 poles in this section have yet to be moved. Sohan Construction has taken the responsibility of moving the poles. The contract for all sections has been taken with the loan assistance of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The second package includes the expansion of the road from Sitapuri to Gothgaun in Morang. The contract for this has been taken jointly by CRFG-Tundi companies. The distance of the section is 40 km. The construction progress of this section is 42 percent. The contract amount for this section is Rs 9.1382 billion. The problem of moving poles is the same in this section. Out of 1,550 poles to be moved in this section, 1,122 have been moved so far. There are still 428 poles to be moved.

In the third package, the distance of the road from Gothgaun in Morang to Labipur in Sunsari is 10.76 km. The contract for this section has been jointly won by three companies, Kovech-CREGC-Tundi Company, for Rs 4.735 billion. The progress of this section is only 22 percent. The problem in this section is also with the electricity poles. Out of 668 poles, only 331 poles have been moved. The project said that 307 poles are still to be moved. The contract for moving poles in the second and third sections has been won by Awan Mahashakti JV.

Project Director of the Project Directorate (ADB) Chudaraj Dhakal said that the progress of the road construction could not be increased because the contractor did not move the electricity poles on time. ‘Sometimes, the road contractor has to move the poles first and then move the electricity poles,’ he said. ‘When we have to work in coordination, one person blames the other.’ The work of moving the remaining poles has not yet begun. ‘It was not possible to just bury new poles and hang wires, the entire pole at the work site has to be removed, that has not been done,’ he said. ‘The work of moving the poles has not been completed until the project is nearing completion. How can the road expansion work be accelerated in such a situation?’

Meanwhile, the Aabukhaireni-Jamune and Jamune-Pokhara sections of the Prithvi Highway were divided into two parts and the work of the first section has been completed. The total distance from Aanbukhaireni to Pokhara is 80.33 km. The contract for the second section from Jamune to Pokhara to Seti Bridge has been taken by Yan Hui Construction. Its distance is 38.88 km. The progress is 81 percent. However, Dhakal said that 21 poles are still to be moved in the western section of the Aanbukhaireni-Pokhara section. ‘We have not been able to work since the poles from Seti Bridge to the airport have not been moved. We have already paid all the expenses for moving and repairing the authority,’ Dhakal said. ‘An MOU has been signed before the road contract was awarded, saying that we will pay Rs 760 million. The poles should be moved by this time.’ The term of the said road section ends on Ashar 15.

The work of moving poles is done through the Nepal Electricity Authority. For this, the authority takes money from the concerned project and invites tenders. The company that gets the contract does the work of moving wires and poles. On most roads, the same company has taken multiple contracts to move poles, which is causing delays in the work. Dhakal said that an agreement has been reached with the NEA to move the electricity poles in the Narayangadh-Hetauda section, which is currently being expanded with a concessional loan from the ADB.

‘Seeing that there has been a delay in moving poles on other roads, we have only requested the NEA to supervise, provide breakdowns, and check the quality of the work. We will pay the cost involved,’ he said. ‘We have reached an agreement that the moving work will be done by the company that takes the road contract.’ Meanwhile, Sohan Construction has also taken the contract to move the electricity poles under the Suryabinayak-Dhulikhel road expansion. Bijay Kumar Mahato, head of the Suryabinayak-Dhulikhel road project, said that the work of moving the poles is nearing completion after repeated requests. Initially, 454 poles had to be moved in the Suryabinayak-Sanga section and 700 in the Sanga-Dhulikhel section.

‘Now, only 25 poles are left to be moved in the Suryabinayak-Sanga section,’ said Chief Mahato, ‘The Sanga-Dhulikhel section has been completed, the contract was awarded through the Nepal Electricity Authority.’ The 15.8-kilometer road expansion connecting Bhaktapur and Kavre along the Araniko Highway has been taken forward. Work is underway on two of its sections. One section is Suryabinayak-Sanga. The distance of this section is 7.5 km. The contract for this section was taken by Ashish-Kumar Shrestha-Bandhan Bhagwati JV on 24 Paush 2079. The contract amount of which is 3 billion 889.3 million rupees, and the progress is 58 percent. One and a half km of the road in the Suryabinayak-Sanga section has been blacktopped. The project said that preparations are underway to blacktop one km of the road in the Sanga section within a week. The deadline for this section expired on 10 December and has been extended until 11 February 2004.

The next section is Sanga-Dhulikhel. The distance of this section is 8.3 km and the construction progress is 70 percent. The first layer of four and a half km of the 6-lane road towards Dhulikhel has been blacktopped. The contract for this section was won by Lama Construction on 10 December 2004 for 4.56 billion rupees. The deadline has been extended until 11 December 2004. So far, the construction progress of the overall project is 61 percent.

One of the reasons for the lack of progress in the construction of the Butwal-Gorusinghe-Chandrauta road is the electricity poles scattered all over the road. The contract for the expansion of the Butwal-Gorusinghe road section has been won by Sansi-Girwan JV. The contract amount is 13.55 billion 95 million rupees. The contract to move the poles has been taken by Sohan Construction. Kushalata Neupane, Planning Chief of the Butwal-Gorusinghe-Chandrauta Road Planning Office, Gorusinghe, said that the road work is being delayed due to the poles not being moved on time. “Out of 2,300 poles that need to be moved, 1,900 are yet to be moved,” she said. “The contracting company has already installed 1,000 new poles. After installing the new poles and wiring, the old poles will be removed.” According to her, 700 new poles have been installed in Rupandehi and 300 in Kapilvastu sections.

‘The contract to move poles from Butwal to Kothikhola has been taken by Bhagwati-Renu JV,’ she said, ‘The contract from Kothikhola to Gorusinge has been taken by Sohan Construction.’ 1,100 poles from Butwal to Kothikhola and 800 poles from Kothikhola to Gorusinge are yet to be moved. An agreement has been reached with the authority for Rs 440 million for both sides. The overall construction progress on the road is 25 percent. It has been one and a half years since the construction work began. The distance of the road is 50 km. The construction period is until 4 Kartik 2084.

When Kantipur asked Nepal Electricity Authority spokesperson Rajan Dhakal why there is always a delay in moving electricity poles even when the road work is completed, he evaded it. He said that he was not very knowledgeable about this and requested Nawaraj Ojha, Deputy Executive Director of the Distribution and Customer Service Directorate under the Nepal Electricity Authority, to understand. Whereas the cost of moving electricity poles is decided by the authority itself. And the authority itself also does the contract. Meanwhile, Ojha said that there is a procedure related to the relocation of electrical structures and the authority is awarding the contract for moving poles according to that.

‘The contract for moving poles is done according to the procedure,’ he said, ‘It is just an allegation to say that the construction of roads was delayed due to the relocation of poles, there was no delay in moving poles everywhere.’ He said that there was also a delay in site clearance from the road side. ‘सडक विस्तार र निर्माण गर्ने निर्माण व्यवसायीले यो म्याद थप गराउन लगाएको आरोप हो,’ उनले भने, ‘केही ठाउँमा प्राधिकरणले ठेक्का गरेर काम लगाएको ठाउँमा ठेकेदारबाट पनि समस्या भएको छ ।’ सबैभन्दा कम आर्थिक प्रस्ताव पेस गर्नेले ठेक्का पाउने र पाँच वटाभन्दा बढी ठेक्का खरिद नियमावलीअनुसार एउटैले लिन नपाउने उनले बताए ।