NAWALPARASI: The deadline for the Narayanghat-Butwal road under the East-West Highway, which is being expanded to four lanes, is set to be extended by one year.

Project Director of the Roads Department, Project Directorate (ADB), Engineer Chudaraj Dhakal, informed that preparations are being made to extend the deadline after the construction company agreed to complete the work with an additional year, even though it had asked for a longer deadline.

“We are preparing to extend the deadline as we have agreed to complete the work except for finishing in one year,” he said. “We have reached the conclusion that we will extend the deadline by one year after the construction company agreed to complete 90 percent of the work.”

According to Project Director Dhakal, the third extension of the deadline for the road project is ending on July 24. He informed that 69.3 percent of the physical progress of the project has been completed so far.

According to Engineer Shiva Khanal, Information Officer of the Narayanghat-Butwal Road Project (Eastern Section), the construction company is currently working on the Daunne section. Since the road has caused problems for passengers in Daunne, manpower has been focused on making the slope there.

In Daunne, work is underway to blacktop the road slope, build a bridge, make four lanes in the place where there is a two-lane road, and build dividers. Currently, 272 workers are working on the road expansion.

Information Officer Khanal said that although the construction of small bridges in this section has been completed and vehicles are operating, the construction of large bridges is still ongoing. Although a large bridge has been constructed on the dry riverbed of Danda, the bridge has not been operational because the approach road (access road) has yet to be built, he said.

“Currently, work is underway on the Chormara bridge, the Beldiha river bridge will be operational in two to three days, and we are doing the slope work on the Jayashree river bridge soon, and the work on the eastern section is progressing at a brisk pace.”

Stating that although 100 meters of road are yet to be blacktopped at Pulchowk in Gaindakot, it will be blacktopped within the next month, Khanal said that about seven kilometers remain to be blacktopped in this section, from Chormara to Dumkibas to Daunne.

Out of the 114 kilometers of the Narayanghat-Butwal road, about 65 kilometers are in the eastern section. Of the road in the eastern section, about one and a half kilometers are covered by bridges, and the remaining seven kilometers of the road will also be blacktopped soon. He said that travel is now easier in the sections other than Daunne.

He said that the physical progress of this section has been increased by about 20 kilometers in a year. “When the second extension expired, only 29 kilometers of blacktop road were covered in this section,” he said. “By mid-july, 56 kilometers of road have been covered in the eastern section.” Chinese construction company China State Construction Engineering Corporation Limited is carrying out the road expansion work.

The construction company had signed a contract agreement with the Government of Nepal to start the work from February 7, 2019 and complete it in 42 months. After the work was not completed within the stipulated time, the construction company has been extending the deadline for the road expansion citing various reasons.

The extension deadline is now final, said Engineer Chudaraj Dhakal, Project Director of the Roads Department, Project Directorate, ADB.

The total cost of the Narayanghat-Butwal road expansion project, which is being worked on in two sections, is Rs 16.9952 billion. The eastern section (Gaindakot-Daunne) of the Narayanghat-Butwal road project costs Rs 9.1311895 billion and the western section (Daunne-Butwal) costs Rs 7.8634 billion.

The remaining amount for the project, which is being carried out with 85 percent loan assistance from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), is from the government.