November 17: It has been six years and three months since the Nepalese Army took over the management of the Kathmandu-Tarai Expressway, a national pride project. The government handed over this project to the army in July 2017, and instructed it to complete the project within four years.

After taking over the responsibility of project management, the army held a press conference and announced that the work would be completed within three and a half years. However, the army claimed that the construction period of the project has been delayed because the work had to be completely stopped for more than four years due to 10 different reasons.

The army informed New Business Age that delays in works like selection of project consultant, Detailed Project Report (DPR), compensation for land acquisition, matching of project duration, Supplementary Environmental Impact Assessment (SEIA), availability of explosives, tree felling and land rights for package number 1 to 5, first revision of the Detailed Project Report and the coronavirus pandemic affected the work for a period of four years.

According to army sources, most of the time was spent on the selection of consultants. Work on the selection of consultants started from November 2017. According to the army, it took two years and six months for the selection of consultants.

Then, the entire work including the design and construction of the project was affected for one year and nine months due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Similarly, eight months have passed for the compensation of land to build the tunnel in Mahadeotar and Lendanda areas. According to the army, five months were wasted due to non-availability of explosives.

Even now, all the sites of the project are not cleared. The controversy of Khokana remains as it is. The latest supplementary environmental impact assessment has shown that more trees need to be felled. The government has repeatedly extended the deadline for the construction of the expressway.

The estimated cost of the project is Rs 211.93 billion and so far Rs 51.45 billion have already been spent.

The government has allocated Rs 22.50 billion in the current fiscal year.

Out of 2,116 bridges to be built under packages number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7, a total of 1,172 have been constructed so far. The army informed that the construction of tunnels and complex bridges has been expedited of late.