Myagdi. MYAGDI: A road upgradation project has been completed five years after the signing of contract agreement in Malika rural municipality of Myagdi district.

The plan to upgrade the road linking Darwang, the centre of Malika Rural Municipality, to Niskot where the office of Ward No. 1 is located has been completed five years in 2078 BS. The contractor had agreed to complete the project in six months at a cost of Rs 283,000 on January 20, 2021.

According to the rural municipality, the agreement with the contractor has been extended for the seventh time till the completion of the project. Dipak Sapkota, chief of the infrastructure section of the rural municipality, said that the process to terminate the contract agreement has been initiated after carrying out technical evaluation and evaluation of the works carried out through the project which has achieved 90 per cent physical progress.

“The contract for the construction of the road was estimated to cost Rs 33,199,999 with the lowest number of contractors in the competition”, he said. ”

According to Sapkota, 190 meters of road has been sloped, widened, rotated and grade improved, soling, gabion and rewa walls have been constructed in Ghorsidanda area under the project. The road from Niskot to Tarakhola has also been opened.

The road connects Malika Rural Municipality-1 Niskot and Bilbang-2 Rum to Darwang Bazaar. Som Bahadur Darji of Malika Rural Municipality-2 said that the road has become easier after improving the slope, curve and turn in difficult places. He said that the road upgradation plan should be continued.

Beg Prasad Garbuja, chairperson of Malika Rural Municipality, said that the project is of strategic importance as it will also connect Tarakhola Rural Municipality of Baglung via Niskot. “The local government had to bear the burden to complete the stalled projects operated with the supplementary grant from the federal government in the previous tenure”, he said, adding, “We have worked hard to bring the stalled and incomplete projects to a stage of completion”. ”

Garbuja, chairperson of the rural municipality, said that the contract agreement for the construction of the road linking Niskot-Tarakhola, which was allocated Rs 10 million in the last fiscal year 2081/82, had to be scrapped due to the issue of forest.