After the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport gave green signal to the expansion plan two weeks ago, the Kathmandu Valley Road Improvement Project (KVRIP) of the DoR is going to start a survey of the 12-kilometer road section from Thursday.
"We will complete the survey by the next month. As the survey gets completed, we will solicit bids from contractors for construction," said Prabhat Kumar Jha, chief of KVRIP.
The road, which is currently around 13 meters now, will be widened to 18 meters and there will be two meters wide sidewalks on either side of the road. As urbanization is rapidly taking place along the Jorpati- Sakhu section, expansion of the road is likely to bring huge relief to the road users.
The road section, one of the busiest roads in Kathmandu, is full of potholes in lack of regular maintenance.
Jha also informed that the DoR has already asked the Kathmandu Valley Development Authority (KVDA) about the expansion and will develop a work plan to expedite the road widening work once the survey gets completed.
"We plan to widen the road sections by the end of the current fiscal year for which demolition of the houses built alongside the road encroaching on government land would be completed within this fiscal year," said Jha.
He said that the widening work from Chabhil to Jorpati, Dakshin Dhoka areas is likely to be difficult as the section has a busy market area. "As the area from Dakshin Dhoka to Sankhu is not that crowded, we are planning to start road construction work from that side," added he.
The KVRIP is also set to upgrade the Tripureshwar-Kalanki road to six lanes and the Kalanki-Nagdhunga road section to four lanes by the end of this fiscal year.
The road section is being widened in line with the standards set for roads of the Valley under the Town Development Implementation Act-2029. As per the standard, roads in the Valley can be widened to up to 25 meters.
Since the road expansion work started in the Valley in December 2011 during the Baburam Bhattarai-led government, around 180 kilometers of the road in the Valley have been widened. The government aims to expand additional 120 kilometers of roads within the next three years.
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