The access road to the Rs 35-billion 456-MW project that was upgraded during winter has caved in at several places with pits around one meter deep formed at many places while at more than five dozen places the road has been swept away by landslides. [break]
The 39-kilometer section from Dolakha Bazar to Singati has already cost Rs 512.80 million while the Singati-Lamabagar section has cost Rs 725.20 million. The domestic contractor had upgraded the road till Singati by putting sub-base and constructing drains and other structures while the Singati-Lamabagar section had just seen laying of the track.
Locals have now completely stopped vehicular movement in the Dolakha Singati section because of the poor condition of the road. Large pits have formed as vehicles continuously ply over the broken road. Vehicles also get stuck in the mud for hours. The locals who could get to Singati from Dolakha in two hours now require over 12 hours while Arniko Yatayat has stopped operating its buses on the road.
Locals claimed works on the bottom layer, both rolling of soil and the use of base course, were sub-standard and talked about massive corruption in the construction of the road. They are demanding investigations into the matter after the road built for containers carrying up to 70 tons have not been able to bear even medium-sized vehicles.
"The road caved in as the gravel that was put without checking the quality of the soil made its way through the soil," argued Ram Prasad Pakuwal of Sundrawati.
"The engineers and technicians of UTKHPL did nothing when the contractors were using sub-standard materials during the construction right under their nose," Laxmi Prasad Siwakoti of Sunkhani said. "When we went to them with complaints, the UTKHPL technicians told us we need not teach engineering to the foreign-trained technicians."
Chief of the Civil Construction Department of UTKHPL Madhusudan Pratap Malla claimed that repair of the road has already been started. "The transportation would resume in a few days as the Chinese company has already started repair works," Malla claimed. The cost of the road has been so high due to the difficult terrain, Malla reasoned.
Sinohydro, the contractor responsible for developing UTKHPL, was reluctant to take over the road construction as stipulated in the contract saying the expense of upgradation would push the contract´s cost beyond the agreed amount. It, however, agreed to take over the project later just to make it functional without touching the sections destroyed by landslides.
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