By April 2013 the road was upgraded to Kailali highway process and since then is being black-topped. The upgrades are being carried out by dividing the highway into eight sections, Shir Bahadur Ghimire, chief of Surkhet-Jumla section of the Karnali Highway project said adding that the upgrades are scheduled to complete before this Dashain."267 km long Surkhet-Jumla section of the Karnali Highway has been already blacktopped. The World Bank supported this project in two phases - initially the Surket to Khidakijyula road section and Jumla- Khalanga road section in the second phase," he informed. The World Bank provided loan amounting to Rs 1.5 billion for the project.
Krishna Budha of Ghodmahadev VDC reckoning the days before the road opened says that he had to carry 40 kg rice sacks from Chupra of Dailekh to his hometown on his back. "I never expected that we would see road and vehicles in Jumla - not even my grandchildren would see that," he said while expressing happiness for being alive to see black topped road in the district with lots of vehicles plying daily.
Due to the upgrade, Jumla now has a direct bus service to Kathmandu. Launched two months earlier, it takes around 36 hours to reach Kathmandu from Jumla and vice versa. Similarly, Surket is now just a day's ride from Jumla.
Nara Bahadur Shahi, first vice-chairman of Uddhyog Banijya Sangh, Jumla said that the road has opened new avenues for trade and commerce along with bringing down commodity costs. "Earlier, people had to pay Rs 70- 80 per kg for transporting goods via airplane. With road transportation, they can now transport goods at Rs 5- 10 by road transport.
Karnali Transport Association in-charge Indra Thapa said that locals are gradually developing habit of using vehicles. To promote use of vehicles, transport entrepreneurs have brought down transportation fares. "Due to the reduced fares, people rather opt for public vehicles instead of walking for hours like before," he shared.
Trade and commerce is an important aspect of development. The road has enabled locals to engage in commercial agricultural and tourist activities. Balakram Devkota, information officer at the Agriculture Development Office, Jumla said with the road transportation the farmers have been able to fetch good price from their produce in the market.
"Locals have even started supplying organic products wherever the demand comes from. Road connectivity has brought the world market to our house," he said adding that farmers are gradually adopting commercial farming as a response to the increased market demands for their products. Along with apples, cash crops like beans, potatoes, onions, cauliflower, cabbage, etc are supplied to Nepalgunj market from Surkhet.
"Now we definitely are going to prosper by growing apple and beans," said Nawaraj Budha, a local. Along with farming, tourism entrepreneurs are also making substantial efforts to boost tourism in the region. Bharat Budh Thapa, executive director of Tourism Development Committee, Karnali, informed that both domestic and international tourism is being promoted in the area. "People come here to see Rara Tal and the natural scenic beauty of the area," he said. With easy access to transportation, tradesmen, teachers, businessmen, among others have started frequenting the district for expanding their presence in respective fields.
However, everything has another side. Along with the convenience that it has brought to the district, the highway has another side too - that of being prone extreme weather conditions and accidents. So far there have been 157 accidents on that in total have killed 114 people.
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