A tractor is seen parked on a side road as manual workers are engaged in their work along the Narayangadh-Muglin road section, in Chitwan district, on Wednesday, June 6, 2018
CHITWAN: The tarmacking of the much-hyped Narayangadh-Muglin road section has been completed. With the tarmacking, a vehicle could complete the route from Narayangadh to Muglin within 35 minutes if no other problem occurred.
Information Officer of Narayangadh-Muglin Road Project, Engineer Shiva Khanal said that the first phase of the tarmacking of the 33.2-kilometre road was completed at Chepangdanda turning point last midnight.
Khanal said that with the completion of the first phase of the tarmacking, the vehicular movement would be regular from today itself along the road section round the clock. The vehicular movement was obstructed for six hours from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm during the road construction period.
Engineer Khanal said that the second layer of tarmacking was completed in 32.7 km road and also the third layer was completed in 12.7 km. Each of the first and second layers of the tarmac would be six centimetres thick while the third layer would be four centimetres.
The construction works of the road section are being carried out by dividing into three different subsections. The Indian ‘BLA’ and Nepali ‘Shrestha Nirman Company’ was awarded tender for the construction of the 10.45-km road from Aaptari to Dasdhunga and has completed the tarmacking of entire layers except for 2 km which is yet to be tarmacked with the third layer.
Likewise, 97.5 per cent of the works of the second subsection (10.69 km) from Dasdhunga to Simaltal entrusted to Indian ‘Wood Hill’ and Nepali ‘Lama Nirman Company’ has been completed.
Similarly, the third subsection of the 12.15-km road from Simaltal to Muglin entrusted to Indian ‘Supreme’ and Nepali ‘Rautaha Nirman Company’ has made 85 per cent progress, Khanal said. He said that 11.8 km of the subsection has been tarmacked with the second layer, and the entire works of third layering of the tarmac, road anchoring and road safety maintenance along the subsection would not take much time to complete if the weather was favourable.
The Narayangadh-Muglin road upgradation project’s deadline expired for the fourth time on May 30 this year.
The first subsection of the road was supposed to have been completed on May 10, the second subsection on May 20 and the third subsection on May 30 respectively.
As the contractors didn’t meet the deadline, they have registered an application with the project’s consultant company seeking an extension of their term yet again. So far, the overall progress of the project has been recorded 91.5 per cent.
The Narayangadh-Muglin road upgradation project was put out to tender in April 2015 with a bid to complete the work within two years’ time. However, the work has not been completed yet due to various factors including the devastating earthquake, unofficial blockade from the Indian side, and considerable rainfall among others.
Moreover, a separate project to prevent landslides has witnessed 45 per cent work progress, which engineer Khanal said, would conclude by mid-July. It has been reported that the risk of landslide is higher in Charkilo area of the road section.
