Width of Tarai Fast Track at Khokana to be halved
KATHMANDU, DEC 10 -
The government has decided to cut by half the amount of land it had planned to acquire at Khokana for the Kathmandu-Tarai Fast Track highway. The change in plan followed pressure by the locals to leave fertile farmland alone and the high compensation they have demanded to vacate their property.
The Ministry of Physical Planning, Works and Transport Management had originally planned to build a 100-m wide highway through Khokana to connect with the expressway which will have a total length of 76 km.
An 8-km stretch passing through Khokana will now be 50 m wide. Located to the southwest of Kathmandu, Khokana is known for its cultural heritage. The historical village has also been proposed to be declared a Unesco World Heritage Site.
“The total road width in the Khokana area will be 50 m considering the land price and sentiments of the locals,” said Tulasi Prasad Sitaula, secretary at the ministry. He added that they were working in such a way so that the total land to be acquired by the government could be determined within two weeks after identifying the landowners to provide compensation and open the track.
Normally, a four-lane highway is 14.63 m to 15.84 m wide, and the remaining strips of land on either side are reserved as right of way (ROW) for the purpose of maintenance or expansion of the existing services. As per the government, a road should have a 25-m ROW on both sides from the centre line.
However, road experts said that even though the decision to reduce the width taking into account only the four-lane highway was fine, the land would not be adequate to establish infrastructure such as high tension lines, oil pipeline and optical fibre cables in the future. “It will be difficult for the government to buy land and implement other projects along the road in Khokana in the future,” said a senior official at the Department of Roads. He added that land prices would increase five-fold after the fast track project was implemented.
According to the law, a committee under the coordination of the chief district officer fixes the amount of the compensation to be given to the landowners whose land is acquired by the government. Earlier, the ministry had estimated that it would need around Rs 3 billion to pay compensation. Land acquisition in Khokana had stalled after the locals demanded a large amount as compensation, prompting the ministry to look for alternative routes for the Tarai Fast Track.
A government study has shown that is possible to bypass Khokana by bringing the alignment along the Bagmati River to the site of the abandoned Himal Cement Factory at Chobhar. Sitaula said that they would stick to the old plan of making Khokana the starting point of the high-speed highway Kathmandu.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
