Road construction on right path

KATHMANDU:

The government constructed 1,180 km fresh roads in the last fiscal year. This has taken the total length of the country’s strategic and central level roads to 26,241 km.

The length of roads opened in the last fiscal year 2013-14 is 70 per cent progress of the 1,688 km target set by the government. It is also 39 per cent of the total target of opening 3,000 km in the ongoing Three Year Interim Plan (2013-14 to 2015-16), according to the National Planning Commission (NPC).

Opening of new roads during last fiscal indicates that the government will meet the target set in the interim plan. In the previous interim plan (2010-11 to 2012-13), a total of 3,000 km new roads were opened, far surpassing the target of 1,493 km.

Officials at the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport said that the length of new roads being opened is increasing greatly due to the requirement to extend basic road facility service and political pressure. They said that the opening of new roads will require the government to invest more resources to upgrade and make them suitable for all weather conditions in the coming years.

In the last fiscal year, gravelling and blacktopping work witnessed comparatively good progress. Of the total target of 698 km, 538 km road was upgraded by blacktopping to suit all weather conditions. In gravelling, there was progress of 83 per cent — meaning 685 km was gravelled against a target of 826 km. Similarly, out of the target to construct 75 bridges, 72 were built.

“We have witnessed physical progress of 85 per cent in the last fiscal,” said Devendra Karki, director general of the Department of Roads (DoR). According to him, they would have achieved progress of around 95 per cent if the shortage of basic construction materials had not affected the project works towards the end of last fiscal year.

After the development in the last fiscal year, the total length of blacktopped roads has reached 11,227 km. Length of gravelled and dirt roads reached over 6,000 km and 9,000 km, respectively. However, despite increasing length of roads, out of the 75 districts, Dolpa and Humla are yet to be connected with the national road network.

The government through the budget announcement for the current fiscal year has set a target to connect the two remaining districts with road by the end of next fiscal year, 2015-16. In the previous fiscal year 2012-13, the government blacktopped 497 km and gravelled 641 km road. Similarly, 74 new bridges were constructed.

The good results achieved last fiscal is attributed to the timely announcement of the budget. For the current fiscal year, the government has set a target of track opening of over 600 km new roads, blacktopping 575 km, upgrading 55,000 km local roads and maintenance of 16,000 plus km. The government has allocated a total of Rs 26 billion for road construction to be supervised from central level by the DoR.

Source: THT