KTM-Tarai Fast Track project plans to bypass Khokana

KATHMANDU, FEB 07 -

The government is considering an alternative alignment for the Kathmandu stretch of the Kathmandu-Tarai Fast Track Road and another site for the planned bus park in place of Khokana, Lalitpur. The alternative option is to bring the road along the bank of the Bagmati River.

The proposed change in plans aims to get around the impasse in which the road project has been stuck for the past two years over land acquisition issues. The planned route of the 8-km Khokana-Dukuchhap stretch passes over private land, and the project is presently engaged in verification of plots in Lalitpur.

Khokana locals have been opposing the Fast Track road plan saying that the government has already acquired huge chunks of farmland in the area in the name of infrastructure development projects, and that further land acquisition would jeopardize the historical importance of the town.

“If the locals do not provide land easily at the market price, we will have to go for an alternative alignment,” said a senior official at the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works.  Ministry officials said that if the locals agree to provide land, the project would need around Rs 3 billion to buying it. Likewise, the 400-500 ropanis of land that would be required for the planned bus park in Lalitpur would cost Rs 2.5 billion to Rs 3 billion.

Tulasi Prasad Sitaula, secretary at the Physical Planning Ministry, said that they were studying the possibility of avoiding Khokana and bringing the alignment alongside the Bagmati River to the site of the abandoned Himal Cement Factory, Chobhar where a bus park can also be built on government land.

“Another option is to build the bus park near the Sikali Temple in Khokana where the Nepal Army has around 100 ropanis of land,” he added.

Land acquisition has been a consistent problem for the project. Last year, the project eventually acquired land in Makwanpur after 18 months. Recently, the District Administration Office, Makwanpur has started to provide compensation to the landowners.

Meanwhile, the Fast Track project has been thinking of letting the District Development Committee build the bus park after determining the location for lack of adequate funds and hectic land acquisition work. “Since the work will need a huge budget, we are looking at the possibility of assigning this work to the local body,” said a project official.

Source: Kantipur