Postal road contractor moves India's dispute board
KATHMANDU, April 8:
The contractor of the Tarai Postal Road has applied to the Dispute Resolution Board of India, seeking compensation saying they were not provided land for carrying out the construction
Vishwa BVSR JV, the Indian contractor of contract packages 3, 4 and 5 has been out of contact for about a year and had taken away all the equipment and machinery from the work sites.
Following the complaint to the Board, a delegation from the Government of India visited Nepal last week and discussed the issue with Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport Bimalendra Nidhi. The delegation was led by an additional secretary at India´s Ministry of External Affairs, Sujata Mehta.
Talking to Republica, Tulasi Prasad Sitaula, secretary of the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport (MoPIT), said the delegation informed them that the contractor has sought compensation as they could not carry out their work because they were not provided the land.
It is also learnt that the delegation has been in Nepal to take stock of the project and check whether the claims and complaints of the contractor are genuine. However, it is not known what complaints the contractor has made to the board.
“We will resolve the issue soon and resume construction of the project,” Situala quoted Mehta as saying. Her visit was focused on various projects under Indian assistance, including the national priority roads.
Sitaula said that the contractor left the site not because of problems with land acquisition and forest clearing but because of low bidding for construction materials. “The contractor had applied for the project, thinking that construction materials were available at the work sites and at the cheapest rates,” added Sitaula.
The contractor had started the construction work along different stretches in the Central Development Region and Western Development Region but some sections in the Bara-Parsa, Mahottari-Sarlahi and Dhanusha-Mahottari stretches were abandoned in a pathetic state after some work had already been initiated.
The government of Nepal signed an agreement with the Indian government in 2006 for the construction of the 1,492 km road along the Tarai belt that runs parallel to the east-west Mahendra Highway. According to the agreement, India is to fund the project, except for land acquisition and construction of bridges. The Government of India itself had awarded the project to the contractor. Work progress in the Eastern and Far-Western Development Regions is slower than targetted.
However, bridge construction for the road is at a satisfactory level. Twenty bridges out of a total of 59 will be completed within this fiscal year, said Sitaula.
With the contractor out of contact for long, MoPIT officials said they are compelled to carry out regular maintenance on the existing road network connecting the various district headquarters.
According to the plan for the project, 607 km of road is to be completed by 2015 in the first phase. However, it is likely that they will have to extend the project by two years. As per the plan, the entire project is to be completed by 2020. Nepal has already spent Rs 3.60 billion by the first eight months of the current fiscal year for the bridges, land acquisition and utility work.
Source: Republica
