KATHMANDU, Aug 24: With just one week remaining for the fourth BIMSTEC summit to begin in Kathmandu, the government is working against the clock to repair the dilapidated Kathmandu roads and give the city a facelift.
But the road repair and kerb painting works being carried out in haphazard manner and even during the rush hours have been causing massive traffic jams in the city.
Sunil Shrestha, a local bus driver who operates on Ratnapark-Chabahil-Gaushala-Koteshwar-Baneshwar route said these haphazard eleventh-hour efforts to improve the city's roads have made his work extremely difficult due to constant traffic jams and long delays.
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Neha Dhital, a local of Kalanki said her commute over the past few days have been extremely longer. “Although traffic jams during office hours are common, travel over the past few days have been particularly tedious,” Dhital said. “I spent an hour to reach Thapathali from Tripureshwar, which is merely one kilometer distance”.
Prakash Paudel, another commuter said it took him 45 minutes to reach Gaushala from mid-Baneshwar on Tuesday as road repair work was underway along the route. According to him it would normally takes less than 20 minutes.
Twenty-two-year-old tempo driver, Sushma Dhimal who operates on Chhauni-Sitapaila-RNAC route said the current repair work are just stop gap measures and the government has no long-term plan to improve the roads.
Mukti Gautam, spokesperson for the Department of Roads (DoR) however claimed that the drive to make all Kathmandu roads free of potholes will not be limited to the BIMSTEC meeting. “It will continue until all the roads are repaired,” said Gautam.
Traffic police inspector Jitesh Dahal said Kathmandu has been witnessing congestion especially during the morning and the evening as the roads department workers carry out the repair work during those times. He said the repair work should have been carried out at nights but that has not been happening. He claimed that traffic police is doing its best to ensure smoother vehicular movement.
“An additional 200 traffic police personnel have been deployed to manage the traffic congestion and they work between 14 to 20 hours a day,” said Dahal. He asked the public to cooperate with the government in view of the BIMSTEC summit.
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