Bridge plan dead in water for lack of funds
KATHMANDU, DEC 21 -
The government’s plan to construct new bridges and repair old ones through a new plan, the Bridge Improvement and Maintenance Programme ( BIMP ), could not take off as resources were not allocated on time. The World Bank-supported programme was scheduled to be implemented early this fiscal year.
The World Bank had provided credit worth US$ 60 million (Rs 5 billion) spread over five years for maintenance and construction of bridges on strategic and feeder roads through the BIMP in June. As per the agreement, the government was required to provide 60 percent of the US$ 12 million set aside by the World Bank annually as counter funding.
An official at the Ministry of Physical Planning, Works and Transport Management said that the programme had been delayed as the government was unable to set aside the 60 percent counter funding with a timely full budget. He added that the Ministry of Finance had recently agreed to allocate money for bridges on the strategic and feeder roads, and so the project was likely to take off soon after fixing an effective date following consultations with the World Bank.
BIMP aims to build 121 new bridges along strategic roads, maintain 89 bridges and complete major and minor maintenance of over 300 bridges across the country in the next five years on a need to build basis by disregarding political interference. The Department of Roads (DoR) will be spending over Rs 2.5 billion including Rs 1 billion (US$ 12 million) from the World Bank on the initiative. Tulsi Prasad Sitaula, secretary at the Physical Planning Ministry, said that they were all set to receive separate budget allocations for building new bridges and repairing old crossings on highways and feeder roads from this year.
As of the last fiscal year, the government used to allocate funds for all the bridges under one budget head, and around 20-30 percent of the total resources allocated used to be spent on highways and bridges on the link roads.
“This happened because leaders of political parties used to put pressure to build bridges on local roads in their localities by neglecting the national requirement,” said a senior official at the department. “From now on, bridges will be constructed based on requirement after a multi-criteria analysis.”
Meanwhile, the department is also preparing to seek the Cabinet’s okay, even though it is not necessary, for the Bridge Management System (BMS) prepared by it as part of the BIMP fearing possible objection from party leaders in the future. “It will be easy for us to carry out our work after the approval from the Cabinet,” said the department official.
The department has readied the BMS in a bid to build and manage bridges in a new way. It will support the government to prioritise bridges in a transparent manner and only those that are really important will be selected for development. A total of Rs 12 billion, including US$ 60 million from the World Bank, will be spent on bridge construction and maintenance during the five-year period 2012-13 to 2016-17. The department said that all the bridges in the country would be in fair to good condition in the next five years after the implementation of the BIMP .
Source: The Kathmandu Post
