Mustang. Under the national pride Beni-Jomsom-Korla road project connecting the north and south, 25 kilometers of the road from Charang-Chosher in Upper Mustang are being upgraded. The road construction company, which was supposed to be completed and handed over to the project in 2075 BS, could not be upgraded due to delay and negligence.
In the financial year 2073/74, the 110-kilometer gravel road from Jomsom to Korla was divided into seven sections and the upgrade was started. Of the seven sections, four sections from Jomsom-Jhaite and three sections from Jhaite-Korla, seven sections with an 11-meter wide gravel were contracted simultaneously.
It has been years since six sections of the seven sections of the road, which were contracted at a cost of Rs 2.6 billion, were graveled and handed over to the road project.
Tamang-Gauri Pavati, Koshi and Neupane JV had taken the contract at a cost of Rs 260 million to upgrade the 25-kilometer Charang-Cho road to an 11-meter width. The company had stopped the work after making 80 percent physical progress.
After repeated correspondence, requests and warnings that it would be blacklisted for not doing the work, only last year, the ‘joint partner’ Gauri Parvati started the road construction by choosing Charang to avoid the blacklist. Bishnu Aryal, site in-charge of Gauri Pavati Construction, informed that the incomplete road upgrade is being carried out with a view to handing over the road to the project within Ashar of the current fiscal year.
According to Aryal, the work of cutting the Charang embankment will be completed within three days and work has been completed at other places. He said that 93 percent of the physical progress of the road has been made and about one km of the road within Charang Bazaar remains to be graveled.
Road Project Chief Dhruv Jha claimed that the gravel contract for the Charang-Choseh road will be completed within Ashad of the current year. Along with this, the 110 km gravel road from Jomsom to Korla will be completed, said Project Chief Jha. Under the Jomsom-Korla gravel road, the project has already expanded the blacktop to the Jomsom-Kagbeni 13 km distance in Ashoja of the current fiscal year.
Similarly, the project has opened a new contract to blacktop about 10 km of the gravel road from Kagbeni to Chhusang in the current fiscal year. A budget of Rs 100 million has been allocated for this.
प्रतिक्रिया दिनुहोस्