29 years on, Baitadi road still incomplete
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BAITADI, DEC 22 -
Twenty-nine years after construction started the Patan-Pancheshwor road in Baitadi district is still awaiting completion. Of the proposed 64-km stretch linking 15 VDCs along the Mahakali river, only 10 km has been completed so far.
Financial irregularities and lack of monitoring are blamed for the delay.
Social activist Prem Chand of Melauni said a huge amount of budget is spent on the construction every year.
“However, the construction never picked up pace,” he said, adding that Rs 150 million was spent in the construction since 1995 alone.
Of the total Rs 15 million allocated for the road last year, more than half the budget was frozen due to delay in the construction.
Former Vice-president of the District Development Committee Bishnudatta Joshi said institutional financial irregularities are rampant in the project. “The highway is just 64 km away. The road would have given the people in the VDCs the much needed respite from the food insecurity they have to face,” he said.
CPN-UML leader Mahadev Bhatta said the documents of the project show that only a
12-km stretch of the road has been dug so far.
“Funds are pocketed by showing the completion of the construction work only in paper. Thirty percent of the commission is taken by project officials,” he claimed.
He said a written request for an all-party meeting to have the construction accelerated and the irregularities stopped has not been heard. “We have urged the leaders time and again. We can do nothing but mount pressure as the project is handled by the centre.”
If completed, the road will ease problems of 25,000 residents of lower Sworada, who are dependent on Indian cities for daily essentials.
“We depend on India for every requirement of ours. However, our concerns are yet to be addressed,” a local teacher Dan Bahadur Chand said.
The Regional Road Directorate (RRD), which is authorised to monitor the construction work, said it is unaware of the matter. “The engineer concerned may have some idea about it,” RRD Chief Bishnu Ombade Shrestha said.
Posted on: 2011-12-22 08:27
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