Myagdi. Beni Municipality concerned office and contractors have expressed commitment to repair the Ratnechaur-Bhakunde road which started to collapse within a month of the blacktopping.

The stakeholders held a discussion in Beni on Sunday regarding the quality of the road being constructed from Beni-1, Ratnechaur to Bhakunde of Ward No. 2 under the ‘One Constituency, One Road’ project being operated by the Road Division Office, Baglung.

The meeting organized by the District Coordination Committee took the decision to monitor the works carried out so far and make arrangements to improve the quality of the road construction works, said Acting Chief of the District Coordination Committee, Dil Kumari Khatri.

Beni Municipality Mayor Surat KC, Road Division Office Chief Senior Divisional Engineer Hari Subedi, technicians, Beni-1 chair Tek Bahadur Thapa, Ward No. 2 chair Yam Bahadur Karki, people’s representatives, contractor company’s representative Arun Sedhai, monitoring committee and consumers were present in the meeting.

In a public hearing organized by Beni municipality on December 19 at Bhakunde on December 19, a team of people’s representatives and locals had drawn the attention of the road division office to the issue of bitumen chips falling apart due to lack of catch and potholes.

Karki, ward chair of Beni-2, said that the blacktop was damaged in two phases due to the lack of bitumen deposits due to the dust in the base. The second phase of blacktopping of the Upallachaur-Arjam-Bimirabot road has been completed recently. Preparations are underway to blacktop the Bimirabot-Bhakunde-Tamane road section and install base and subbase.

As per the agreement, the road will be blacktopped and sloped with DBSD technology at the rate of seven meters wide. Gajendra Nayabato JV had signed a contract for Rs 233.2 million on August 20, 2022 BS for the construction of the project. The deadline for the project which had a contract period of 30 months has been extended till Falgun 2082.

According to the Road Division, 75 per cent physical progress has been made. Subedi, chief of the Road Division Office, Baglung, pledged to build the road in accordance with the standards during the contract and repair period.

“We believe that the bitumen accumulated due to cold will melt and catch the chips and the ground after the heat increases and the pressure of vehicles,” he said, “If the chips are found to be in a state of collapse even in summer, then we will ask them to hand over the chips to the prescribed quality only after making them according to the prescribed quality.” Subedi said that the construction company has already sent a letter to repair the damaged area.

The project manager of the construction company, Sedhai, said that the first phase of blacktopping and base was damaged by floods and in the second phase of bitumen laid before the rainy season and the bitumen laid in the second phase would freeze due to cold and the chips would be caught by the bitumen.