BP Highway gets March 15 opening date
SINDHULI, DEC 21 -
The government and the Japan International Cooperation Agency ( JICA ) Nepal have targeted completing the Banepa-Sindhuli road by March 2015. Banepa lies 26 km to the east of Kathmandu. Also known as BP Highway, it is expected to ease congestion on the Kathmandu-Mugling route in the west by drawing away southbound motor traffic.
The north-south aligned BP Highway is being developed as an alternative route connecting the capital with the Tarai plains. About 137 km of the 160-km long highway has been completed, and the remaining portion is expected to be finished within 15 months.
The stretch being constructed with a grant assistance from Japan has been divided into four sections—Bardibas-Sindhuli (37 km), Sindhuli Bazaar-Khurkot (36 km), Khurkot-Nepalthok (37 km) and Nepalthok-Dhulikhel (50 km). The Khurkot-Nepalthok section has been further divided into three sub-sections. Since building started in 1996, three sections and one sub-section of the road have been completed.
According to Hiroki Shinkai, JICA chief advisor of Road Maintenance Management (RMM), the second sub-section of the Khurkot-Nepalthok section which is 3.6 km long will be completed in July next year. After the second sub-section is finished, 18.9 km of the road will be left to be completed.
“The construction work is going ahead steadily, and we are hopeful that the road will be completed as per the target,” said Bharat Kaji Deoju, project manager of the Banepa-Sindhuli-Bardibas Road Project. More than Rs 23 billion has been spent on the project whose total estimated cost amounts to Rs 30.1 billion.
Meanwhile, the government has received a grant amounting to Rs 5.6 billion from the Japanese government to build the remaining stretch of the road section. The road project is JICA ’s largest funded project in the world. “The Japanese government has released all the required budget for the project, therefore, it is sure that the road will be completed in the next 15 months if there are no obstructions,” said Bindu Sumsher Rana, former chief of the project and member of RMM.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
