SURKHET/KALIKOT, Aug 19: For Dorje Gurung, 21, a simple trip to obtain a citizenship certificate turned into a week-long ordeal.
A resident of Ward 6 of Dolpo Buddha Rural Municipality in Dolpa, Gurung spent three days walking to Dunai, the district headquarters. After obtaining his citizenship on the fourth day, he had to make the same arduous journey back home. By the time he returned, seven days had passed.
The journey is a familiar hardship for residents of upper Dolpa, where motorable roads remain out of reach. Dolpo Buddha has no road connection to Dunai, forcing residents to rely on narrow, treacherous trails for administrative services, medical treatment and essential supplies.
“Because of the difficult terrain, we have no choice but to risk our lives while travelling along narrow trails to the district headquarters,” Gurung said. “It takes three full days just to reach the headquarters from home.”
With no motorable roads, people and mules carry food and other supplies along the trails. Dunai is not the only distant destination. It takes Gurung another full day to reach Dho, the rural municipality centre, from his village.
According to Pemma Dhorche Gurung, vice chairperson of Dolpo Buddha Rural Municipality, residents have to walk for three to five days from Dho to reach Dunai.
For many in upper Dolpa, better road access remains a distant prospect.
Work is underway on the Dunai-Lasicap section of the Bheri Corridor under a government contract, but progress has been slow because of the region’s rugged, rocky terrain. Blasting is required to break through the rocks, and so far, only the Nepali Army has been authorised to carry out such work.
Mustang-Dolpa road remains closed for 10 days
The federal government has recently decided to hand over the Lasicap-Sisol section to the Nepali Army. “Even after this section is completed, the Bheri Corridor will not be fully complete, but it will improve road access to four rural municipalities in Dolpa that are still outside the road network,” said Tek Hitan, chief of the Infrastructure Development Office in Dolpa. “It will also help expand trade relations with China.”
Along with Dolpo Buddha, Kaike, Chharka Tangsong and Shey Phoksundo rural municipalities remain outside the national road network. They also lack reliable internal road connections.
Residents often have to walk between wards and to Dunai. For these four municipalities, which lie along the Bheri Corridor, completing the Dunai-Lasicap and Lasicap-Sisol sections is essential to establishing road connectivity.
If the two sections are completed, residents of the four upper Dolpa municipalities could finally gain access to motorable roads.
A road from Mustang has already reached the border of Chharka Tangsong Rural Municipality. But the municipality lacks the resources needed to extend it to its administrative centre at Kagkot.
For Yamba Gurung of Ward 5, the absence of roads has meant a lifetime of carrying heavy loads. “If roads reached our villages, our children and grandchildren would no longer have to carry loads on their backs,” he said. “We still struggle to bring basic supplies such as salt and rice. Road access would make life much easier for the next generation.”
It takes Yamba three to four days to reach Dunai from his village and seven to eight hours to reach Kagkot.
According to Bishal Poudel, chief administrative officer of Chharka Tangsong Rural Municipality, construction of the Bheri Corridor is moving at a snail’s pace, making it difficult to say when road access will reach the municipality.
The rural municipality has built 55 kilometres of roads, including roads connecting some wards, along with bridges. Yet residents still have to walk for three to four days to travel between some wards. “Reaching all the wards on foot is extremely difficult. A staff member spends around Rs 50,000 to visit all the wards,” Poudel said. “At this pace, I think it could take another 10 years for us to get proper road access.”
He said the state had not paid enough attention to upper Dolpa.
Dolpa Chief District Officer Juna Hamal said residents of three municipalities in the upper part of the district continue to face severe hardship because of the lack of road access. “Everything from getting medical treatment to arranging food supplies is difficult,” she said.
A wider problem across Karnali
Dolpa is not the only district where communities remain cut off from the national road network.
Mugum Karmarong Rural Municipality in neighbouring Mugu also lacks road connectivity. Slow progress on the Gamgadhi-Naghchhenagla road, which is expected to connect the area with China, has prevented the municipality from gaining road access to Gamgadhi, the district headquarters.
Of Karnali Province’s 79 local units, eight in three districts remain outside the national and motorable road networks.
The administrative centres of Kaike, Dolpo Buddha, Chharka Tangsong and Shey Phoksundo in Dolpa; Mugum Karmarong in Mugu; and Mahawai, Palata and Pachaljharana in Kalikot have yet to receive proper road access.
Mahawai Rural Municipality Chairperson Khem Bahadur Singh said roads have yet to reach either the municipality centre or all its wards. “A road connecting the municipality centre is currently under construction,” he said.
Pachaljharana Rural Municipality faces a similar problem. Wards 2, 3 and 5 and the municipality centre remain without road access. Vice Chairperson Alkina Bam said residents have suffered because there is no bridge over the Karnali River.
“Because construction of the motorable bridge has been delayed, the municipality centre at Padeksha and three wards still lack road access,” she said. “Despite repeated requests from the local government, construction has not picked up pace.”
In Palata Rural Municipality, a bridge has become the missing link. Although the local government has opened internal roads, the absence of a bridge over the Karnali River has kept the municipality disconnected from the wider road network.
For communities scattered across the remote hills of Karnali, the road remains more than a route to the district headquarters. It is a lifeline to markets, health facilities, government services and opportunities that many other parts of the country take for granted.
