The widening work of the Butwal-Narayanghat section of the East-West Highway has been moving at a snail’s pace. The road expansion project was initiated around four years ago with a plan to complete the work in three years.
According to officials at the Butwal-Narayanghat Road Project, only around 35 percent of work has been completed so far.
Around 15 km section of the 114 km Narayanghat-Butwal has been blacktopped as of now. The blacktopped section is 7 to 10.5 metres wide,” said Rakesh Jha, a consultant engineer at China State Construction Engineering Corporation.
In February 2019, the Department of Roads had signed an agreement with China State Construction Engineering Corporation to implement the road project. As per the project agreement, the existing two-lane road has to be widened to six lanes in market areas, four lanes in forest areas and three lanes in the Daunne hill areas. The contractor had divided the Narayanghat-Butwal road into two sections—48 km Daunne-Gaindakot section and 66 km Daunne-Butwal section.
The road widening work along the Butwal-Narayanghat stretch, one of the busiest sections along the East-West Highway, was initiated with Rs17 billion loan assistance from the Asian Development Bank.
The project deadline, which was extended for a second time, expires on September 8 this year. It is almost certain that the project will miss the deadline, according to officials. They said that the Chinese construction company has started lobbying for a third extension of the project deadline.
Engineer Jha admits that delay in the project has inconvenienced the public. According to him, the construction company wants to extend the deadline by a year and a half.
The delayed expansion work has disrupted vehicular movement along the busy road stretch. The road project has diverted vehicular traffic at various places for the construction of bridges and road-widening work, causing hours-long traffic jams. With numerous potholes along the road caused mainly due to the road widening work, the Butwal-Narayanghat section has become accident prone.
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