DAMAULI, Oct 22: Around 7,000 trees are to be cut during the widening of the Mugling-Pokhara road section of the Prithvi Highway. 

The road is being expanded to four lanes and a total of 6,750 trees along the Tanahu section are to be removed. The Division Forest Office, Tanahu chief Komalraj Kafley said the permission for the same has already been received from the Department of Forests. The road project will hand the trees to be cut during the implementation of the project over to the forest office.  

Likewise, the process of seeking permission to cut 1,250 trees on the Kaski section is in progress. 

So far, electric poles near the roadside along eight kilometers of the area at Gunadi area of Myagdi Rural Municipality-1 have been removed in course of the widening of the 80 kilometers Mugling-Pokhara road section. 

The road is being upgraded with loan assistance from the Asian Development Bank. The upgrading works are being carried out dividing the road into two blocks. The contract of the 41.45 Aabukhaireni-Jamune east section has been given to the China Communication Constructions while the contract of 39 kilometers Jamune-Pokhara east section has been won by the Chinese company Anhui Kaiyuan Highway and Bridge Construction Ltd.

Works are in progress along the first block of the road section. Project Chief Narendra Subedi said the section was contracted at the cost of Rs 6.21 billion while the representative of the Highway and Bridge Construction Company arrived in Nepal in the last week of August owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and works on the second cluster are yet to kick off, it is said.

(With Inputs from RSS)