Road inspectors deployed by the department on Friday impounded over 200 tippers and trucks at three different entry points of the valley for ferrying sands, gravels and boulders beyond the limit. The owners of some 50 tippers got their vehicles freed on Friday itself after lowering the sidebars of the frames of their trailers. [break]
About three months ago, the department had introduced a set of standards of capacities of transport vehicles involved in ferrying building materials mainly from Dhading, Sindhupalchowk and Lalitpur districts.
As per the standards, a tipper or a truck can not carry more than 9.5 cubic meters of building materials. Similarly, a transport vehicle is allowed to rear up the sidebar of trailer frame only up to 40 inches high.
A majority of trucks and tippers, however, have clearly been violating the standards. “We had asked them to meet the standards within a month through a public notice,” Anil Gurung, director at the department, said on Friday. “As the deadline expired today, we sprang into action.”
Gurung said the seizure will continue. “Our roads and traffic system will no longer remain functional if we do not take action against overloaded tippers and trucks,” he said.
The Ministry of Physical Planning and Works had informed the Parliamentary Committee on Natural Resources and Means that it would require Rs 7.5 billion to repair 500 km roads damaged by overloaded trucks and tippers.
The owners of almost 98 per cent of tippers had raised the sidebars of the trailers up to 50 inches. And, they had been carrying as heavy as 13 cubic meters of construction materials at once. It has apparently caused subsidence in the highways to the Valley.
Recently, the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works had informed the Parliamentary Committee on Natural Resources and Means that it would require Rs 7.5 billion to repair 500 km roads damaged by overloaded trucks and tippers. These damaged roads include a stretch of road from Dhading to Kathmandu.
In the Dhading-Kathmandu road, more than 800 tippers ferry building materials into the valley mainly from Nagdhunga. Some of them enter the valley through Dhulikhel as well. Hundreds of trucks are also used in ferrying materials to meet the rising demands of the building sector.
According to Tek Raj Bohara, a mechanical engineer at the department, a tipper loaded with damp sand plies on the highway dripping water. And, the following tipper heavily presses the highway being slackened by the cascading drops of water dripped by the foregoing one.
“On the way to Mugling from Kathmandu, we can see that the right lane of the highway has been noticeably subsided,” he said. “The overloaded tippers and trucks have significantly contributed to this subsidence.”
Besides, the overloaded tippers and trucks, as Bohara points out, often breakdown or ply slowly causing snarling traffic jams. “The overloaded tippers and trucks disturb traffic system particularly on the Naubise-Nagdhunga section,” he said. “We can get rid of this to a great extent by not allowing any tippers and trucks ferry an overload of construction materials.”
Krishna Panta, president of Tipper Entrepreneurs´ Association (TEA), says that it is mainly an unhealthy competition, which is goading them into transporting an overload of building materials.
According to Panta, the tires of their tippers often puncture due to overload, increasing the maintenance fees. “The durability of our tippers, too, has been reduced,” Panta said. “But, if we do not carry overload, we may not find consumers in market.”
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