The proposed 77-km road was designed to cover Pokhara sub-metropolitan city, nine village development committees (VDCs) in the vicinity and some parts of Lekhnath municipality. However, after the building of a 3-km track in Valam VDC some four years ago, substantial work on the road has not been done. [break]
“The entire project is in a jeopardy because of a lack of budget,” Narahari Baral, local development officer of Kaski district said. “We are desperately looking for donors but have not been able to find one.”
A budget of around Rs 1 billion is required for the project. According to Baral’s estimations, around Rs 5 million is required to construct one kilometer of black-top road and around Rs 500,000 is required to construct one bridge on the road. Till date, an investment of around Rs 7.5 million has already been injected into the project.
The government had started the project some four years ago to facilitate the urbanization process in the surrounding areas around Pokhara. And while the government has been hamstrung by the lack of funds, the people have done their bit to contribute to the project. In a show of support for the initiative taken by the government, the people living in the project area—whose land will be encroached upon during the construction of the road—have decided not to claim the compensation that the government is supposed to provide to them.
These small contributions are praiseworthy, but according to Baral, these are not enough to complete the project. “It’s a huge project and the money has to come from the government or international donor agencies,” Baral said.
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