Myagdi. The Maldhunga-Beni road linking Myagdi and Mustang with the national highway has been upgraded to ease the movement and shorten the travel time.

The work of blacktopping the Maldhunga-Beni road section by widening the Maldhunga-Beni road section by 11 meters through the project of the national pride project linking China and India has reached the final stage.

According to the Road Planning Office, blacktopping and slope have been completed in about two kilometers of the road stretching 13 kilometers. Transport entrepreneur Resh Bahadur Bishwakarma said the travel time for the Maldhunga-Beni road section has been reduced to 20 to 25 minutes after the upgrade of the road.

“For the last five years, we have been travelling via Beni to Maldhunga via Ratnechaur Baglung to travel from Pokhara to Beni,” he said, adding, “The problem of travelling on a circuitous road has been removed and the travel time has also been shortened.” ”

Baburam Karki, a resident of Milanchowk in Jaljala rural municipality-7, said that the blacktopping of the road has put an end to the risk and arduous journey in the dusty and muddy road. “We are hopeful that the road up-gradation works in the remaining places would be completed soon”, he said, adding that the fare for public transport and transportation would also be adjusted once the road upgrade completes. ”

Local residents of Myagdi, Mustang and Jaljala rural municipality of Parbat along with tourists and pilgrims pass through this road. The Maldhunga-Beni road which was opened in 2052 BS under the ‘Food for Work’ programme was blacktopped one-way in 2068 BS. The narrow road had become dilapidated of late due to the increase in traffic congestion after the Mustang and Korala border points were connected to the road network.

Apex-Khadka-Krishna JV had signed a contract for Rs 528.6 million in April 2020 to blacktop the two-lane road from Maldhunga of Kushma municipality-1 to Beni via wards 8, 7, 4 and 3 of Jaljala rural municipality.

It was targeted to be completed by 2079 BS. The main contractor had come to the project a year ago to complete the project which was stalled by the sub-contractor Omkareshwar citing the coronavirus pandemic, floods and shortage of river-based construction materials.

Before this, three kilometres of blacktopped and 200 metres of landslide was done along the Maldhunga-Farse section last year. The six-kilometer five-hundred-meter road along the Lasti-Beni section was blacktopped since the third week of November. Blacktopping has been completed in Lasti, Kerabari and Lamakhet sections.

The blacktopping work was eased by closing the road from 10 am to 5 pm from November 1 to 5 in coordination with the local administration. Construction company engineer Jeevan Chaudhary said that the construction of structures for blacktopping around one kilometer of one kilometer in Lasti-Farse and Milan Chowk bazaar has reached the final stage.

760 meters of the road in Waribeni, 1÷100 meters in Kerabari and Farse landslides have been removed from the contract. Information Officer of the Beni-Jomsom-Korala Road Project, Bishnu Chapagain, said that the road expansion in the middle of the settlement in Waribeni had to be removed from the contract due to the consent of the house owners and landslides in Farse and Kerabari.