Kavrepalanchowk. Bhaktapur: The Road Division Office, Bhaktapur is awaiting the consent of the Ministry of Finance to re-invite the contract for the upgradation of the under-construction Dhulikhel-Khawa road section at Kavrepalanchowk under the Araniko Highway. The contractors had filed a case with the Patan High Court soon after the office cancelled the contract with the construction company, saying that the construction of the four-kilometer road was not completed within the stipulated time.
Eleven months after the expiry of the deadline, the office had cancelled the contract with Gauri-Parbati Construction Service, which was entrusted with the responsibility of upgrading the project, on February 11 last year. A few days later, the court issued an interim order to blacklist the construction company, confiscate the bail amount and ‘not to take action and keep it in the same condition as it is now’.
Suman Yogesh, chief divisional senior engineer at the office, said the court order would not hamper the reopening of the contract. According to him, the Road Division Office is awaiting the consent of the Ministry of Finance. “All preparations for the contract process have been completed and we will open the contract as soon as we get the ministry’s consent,” yogesh said.
The company had taken the contract for the road expansion from Dhulikhel to Khawa, the district headquarters, on June 20, 2079 BS, to be completed within 22 months i.e. April 1, 2080. Even after 11 months of the deadline, even 25 percent of the construction work could not be completed due to delay in the construction by the contractor company. Since last year, the construction work of the road section has come to a standstill.
According to the office, the company had given a written explanation, but it was decided to cancel the contract as it was not satisfactory and reliable. So far, only hill cutting work has been done from Dhulikhel Bus Park to Zipline, while drains and drain-wall have been installed in some places. Only about the road from the zipline place to Khawa below has been demolished, but cutting is left in one kilometer section. Although dhulikhel started the work of laying the base and sub-base in May last year, it was washed away in repeated rains.
The passengers of the vehicles passing through the highway have been facing a lot of problems for the last two years due to lack of timely completion of the construction. Hundreds of road accidents take place due to non-completion of road construction work on time. The Dhulikhel-Khawa road section, which has been in dilapidated for the past few years, was to be blacktopped by widening it by 12 meters.
For the first time in Nepal, the office had planned to install a 20 cm thick cement-mixed base on gravel and two rounds of blacktopping DBM and Asphal to strengthen the carrying capacity of freight vehicles plying on the road. This is the road leading to Nepal’s northern border with China i.e. Tatopani of Sindhupalchowk and Dolakha and Ramechhap through the Araniko Highway.
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