Building material shortage hits construction sector

KATHMANDU:

Radha Dhital of Kohalpur has postponed her plan to build a house in Galfutar, Kathmandu, thrice in the last three months. Reason: shortage of construction aggregates, such as sand and crushed stones.

As there is no indication of supply situation improving soon, Dhital’s family has decided to complete the ritual of laying the foundation stone this Saturday and start construction work later.

The problem faced by Dhital is just an example of how shortage of basic construction materials — due to closure of crusher factories — has affected the construction sector lately.

This problem, in turn, has affected thousands of workers — mostly daily wage earners — at a time when Dashain is less than a month away. On the other hand, the problem has had a cascading effect on sales of other construction materials, such as bricks, cement and steel.

Sales of cement have fallen by 20 per cent in the recent days, according to Cement Producers Association.

“There is no use of cement and bricks without availability of sand and crushed stones,” said Saroj Shrestha of Sanil Hardware.

The country started facing shortage of construction aggregates since mid-July after the government introduced new criteria for operation of crusher plants.

Since most of the 700 crusher factories had not renewed their licences when new criteria were introduced, their status automatically became illegal and were not allowed to conduct business.

The government had introduced new criteria for crusher industries, claiming rampant extraction of natural resources, like sand and stones, was inducing environmental problems. The new criteria were also introduced as extraction of sand from river beds was weakening the foundation of infrastructure like bridges. It is said excessive extraction of sand from the Ratu River in Dhanusha had caused a bridge over it to collapse two weeks ago.

Gokarna Mani Duwadi, joint secretary at the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, said new measures were targeted at managing crusher industries.

These measures include relocation of crusher industries to areas 500 metres from highways and riverbanks, 100 metres away from high-tension transmission lines and two kilometres away from academic and health institutions, protected areas and dense human settlements.

Crusher entrepreneurs, on the other hand, say they are ready to relocate but have asked the government to let them run their businesses till the government finds new locations.

The government has said it would identify new stone mines by mid-January and sand excavation sites by mid-September. Till that time the government has asked crusher industries to declare their stock of sand and crushed stones and sell them in the market.

“We are ready to sell what we have in stock but that will smoothen the supply situation for two days,” said Umesh Sherchan, president of Nepal Crushers and Mines Entrepreneurs.

CPA President Dhruba Thapa said the government should come up with a solution to end this problem immediately, as closure of crushers factories had started affecting the entire infrastructure sector.

Department of Roads officials said if the problem prolonged, infrastructure development works that generally begin in mid-November would be affected, resulting in lower capital spending this fiscal.

Source: THT