Blacktop road inside Ring Road within a Year: Parliamentary Committee

Kathmandu, June 14: The Development Committee of the Legislature-Parliament Tuesday directed the government, line ministries and other respective agencies to formulate programmes to expedite the road expansion and complete black topping of all roads inside the Ring Road within a year.

The directive was sent to the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport (MoPIT), Kathmandu Valley Development Authority (KVDA), Kathmandu Valley Road Improvement Project (KVRIP), Kathmandu Municipality, District Development Committee, Department of Roads (DoR), and representatives elected from the Valley.

In order to carry out the road expansion and upgrade in the Kathmandu Valley in an integrated and more effective way, the Committee directed all the concerned authorities and agencies to hold a coordination meeting in every three months.

"As multiple agencies are involved in road expansion and upgrading projects in the Kathmandu valley, there have been duplication, delay and inefficiency due to lack of proper coordination. Therefore, this committee directs all the ministries, departments and other concerned agencies as well as the lawmakers of the valley to hold a coordination meeting and send the decision of the meeting," Development Committee Chairman Rabindra Adhikari read the decision.

A separate directive was issued for the MoUD to form a mechanism for the integrated coordination with Department of Drinking Water and Sewerage, Nepal Electricity Authority and telecom companies along with the Department of Roads in order to carry out the development works in a more integrate way.

The committee also expressed its serious concerns towards the dilapidating and under-construction roads. "The roads under-construction or expansion has been troubling the common people as they become muddy during the rainy season and dusty in other seasons. Accidents are also happening quite often. Therefore, the contractors that don't finish the road construction should be black listed and those should be awarded which finish the projects in time with quality works," said Adhikari.

Lawmakers from the Kathmandu Valley, Dipak Kuinkel, Dhyan Govind Ranjit, Bhimsen Das Pradhan, Ram Bir Manandhar and Rajendra Kumar KC, criticized the government for its inefficiency in completing the road construction in time.

Pradhan criticized the Kathmandu Metropolitan City for the poor quality of roads and blamed the latter that it ignored the quality as the contractors paid commission to the officials at the city office.

Manandhar emphasized on constructing river corridor and link roads in Bagmati, Bishnumati and other rivers in the Valley. He also suggested the government removing the land encroachers from the banks of the rivers and build roads.

Guru Burlakoti asked the government to carry out the road construction works in the night as it caused inconvenience to the common people during the day.

Dipendra Nath Sharma, secretary at the MoUD, expressed his commitment to hold the coordination meeting as soon as possible.

KMC chief executive Rudra Singh Tamang said that while better coordination was needed among the authorities, priority should be given to the public grievances.