KATHMANDU, April 16: The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) has initiated an investigation into suspected irregularities in the Kalanki-Balkhu road project. Earlier, the road department and Kathmandu road division had demolished the service lane of Kalanki-Balkhu road which was in good condition and proceeded with the repair.
The CIAA has started an investigation on the suspicion that the road was destroyed for the sake of the commissions despite there being no problem with the road. Narayan Prasad Nihure, chief of the road division, said that the repair work has been stopped as the CIAA has started an investigation.
"At present, the authority has collected the sample and taken it for investigation. No process will proceed until there is an answer from there," he said. However, Nihure claimed that there is no fault of road division in the repair of this road.
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Similarly, Sumitra Adhikari, engineer of the ring road expansion project, said that the authority has investigated the quality. Within three years, the project started to demolish the road stating that there was a problem with the road. Meanwhile, the CIAA has started an investigation regarding the fact that there was no problem in the Chinese-made road, but there was a problem on the service lane built by Nepal.
According to CIAA sources, an investigation is also underway into the matter of destroying the road in order to get commissions by awarding a contract for Rs 140 million.
The 1.7 km section of the service lane from Kalanki to Balkhu, on the left was constructed by the ring road expansion project at a cost of Rs 341.8 million.
However, within three years, the 'base structure failure' of the road and the need for periodic maintenance were shown, and a new contract was awarded for Rs 138.2 million. The contract was awarded to Worldwide PR SK JV.
Similarly, the ring road expansion project office does not have a record of who designed the road when it was first built. According to the Chinese construction company, the work may have been done according to the design of the ring road expansion project.
While Rs 138.2 million has been allocated to construct 1.7 km road, In Nepal, only 40 million rupees are spent per km to build roads. However, roads where underpass culverts are to be constructed are more expensive.
