Kavrepalanchowk. The work on the Sanga-Dhulikhel road section of the Araniko Highway has been halted due to rain. According to the project, the work will resume after the monsoon ends.

However, the work in the Pulbazar area of the road section has been stalled for the last four months due to obstruction by the locals. According to the Suryabinayak-Dhulikhel, Dhulikhel-Sindhuli-Bardibas Road Project of the Department of Roads, the expansion work has been stopped in about 200 meters of the area. According to the office, one kilometer main road in Dhulikhel has been paved, but due to the monsoon, no more concrete has been completed.

Project engineer Bishnu Prasad Khanal said the road from Dhulikhel to Banepa and one km road in Janagal area of Banepa have not been paved due to the rain.

According to Khanal, with the expansion of the road, the removal of about 50 electric poles in Banepa area and the removal of one house in 28 kg has also been stopped. The construction work of about one kilometer road from Chandeshwari Khola to Banepa Chardobato on the eastern side of Banepa city is going on, but the work has come to a standstill due to rain.

After this, the expansion work was stopped for four months. Locals have blocked the construction work by raising a dispute over the need to allocate equal 75 feet (150 feet) out of 75 feet (150 feet) from the center line.

Khanal said that the construction work was halted after the locals created a controversy by saying that the distance of the house should be equal as the road is separated from the middle of the road according to the design of the road. According to him, discussions between the stakeholders, people’s representatives of Banepa municipality and locals have not yielded any conclusion.

With the obstruction of the locals, the work of removing the houses within the standard, expansion of electric poles, optical fiber and removal of high tension poles has been stopped. The construction work in the main city area of Banepa was also halted due to obstruction in the Pulbazar area.

Meanwhile, the six-lane road from Suryabinayak of Bhaktapur to Dhulikhel of Kavrepalanchowk along the Araniko Highway has not been completed in time. The project has said that the expansion work will not be completed in the remaining six months. The 16-km-long road, which was started from January 24, 2019, was targeted to be completed within 36 months. The road section was divided into two sections from Suryabinayak to Sanga and from Sanga to Dhulikhel.

According to the project, around 50 percent of the work on the expansion of the two sections has been completed. Under the project, an agreement was signed for the expansion of the 8.4-km road section from Sanga to Dhulikhel in the first phase at a cost of Rs 4.05 billion and rs 3.88 billion for the Suryabinayak-Sanga road section started in the second phase.

Sajna Adhikari, senior divisional engineer and information officer of the project, said that the extension work could not be completed within the stipulated time. According to him, the work could not be started in time due to the demolition of houses within the standard, replacing the cables of trees, electric poles and optical fiber. Similarly, there has been a delay in the construction of private houses, including bridges, in the urban area of Banepa on the Sangang-Dhulikhel section. Around 65 percent of the physical construction will be completed by the deadline.