Dolakha, November 19

Dolakha locals continued their protest against a road project that had been left in the lurch for years due to negligence of the contractor.

After they protested by pasting the contractor’s photo on public vehicles for two days, they formed a human chain today to press the contractor of the Mude-Charikot road to complete the project.

According to Ramesh Khatiwada, a participant in today’s protest, around 1,000 people wearing black masks came out to form a human chain and protested the delay in road construction.

“We protested for about one hour by forming human chain today. We’ll take up other forms of creative protests in the days to come if he (the contractor) doesn’t expedite work,” said Krishna Bahadur Basnet, a local civil society leader.

It was around four years ago that contract for upgradation of the road was signed. The project was estimated to be completed in two years. However, only 60 per cent of the 30km road stretch has been blacktopped so far.

Earlier, Charikot  Road Division Office had fixed Rs 4 lakh as daily fine on the contractor Sakil Haidar Shankarmali Sunaila Khimti JV, citing lack of progress in the project.