The Kathmandu Valley Development Authority has been working to develop the Capital into an organised, safe, clean and lively city. It has initiated road widening to facilitate the transport system and is also working in the areas of preservation of public land and land pooling in the Valley for the integrated development of urban settlement. The KVDA has been planning to set up four smart cities on the outskirts of Kathmandu Valley with proper urban planning to ease the population density in the Capital. Sabin Mishra of The Himalayan Times caught up with Bhai Kaji Tiwari, development commissioner at KVDA, to know why the road widening process and other works being carried out by the authority are moving at a slow pace. Excerpts:

The road-widening process in Kathmandu Valley was initiated in around 2011, however it still has not been completed. What has been the progress on that front at the moment?

The road-widening process has been currently stopped due to the monsoon. It is technically difficult to work in this season. The other factor is that the contractors and consumer committees have not been paid for the work that they had completed in the last fiscal year. We have yet to pay Rs 750 million to those contractors and consumer committees. We cannot continue the work before the payments are made. If you talk about our budget spending capacity, then the authority has always been spending the entire annual allocated budget in the first quadrimester of the fiscal year itself. Also there have been some cases filed at the court and a few of the works have been delayed but this should be sorted out pretty soon. Besides the big projects under the authority we have always finished the allotted budget in the first quadrimester and latest by November if there have been any delays in some works. I would say that we are facing problems of resource crunch. We have not been able to meet certain targets due to lack of resources and not because of our lack of will to work. Even the people are willing to demolish their houses when we have any project to implement but we are not in a position to pay timely compensation due to shortage of funds. For instance, people living along the Satdobato-Godawari and Satdobato-Chapagaun routes have given their consent to demolish the houses to expand the roads but we have not been able to move forward in those areas. Though it has been slow we have been moving ahead with our projects quite successfully. Initially, there was a lot of hue and cry when we started the road-widening process because people had to demolish their houses but at present people are voluntarily doing it. Moreover, with elected local representatives now I believe our work will be easier because they also have been supporting us in our works.

You just mentioned that local representatives are supporting you but there have been incidents of some of them refusing to cooperate with the authority. What would you like to say on that?

We have held discussions with the local representatives of the affected areas for the road-widening process. The newly elected mayors have been positive regarding the road development works. However, the mayor of Chandragiri municipality has stated that the compensation for the land must be provided to the public before the road-widening process begins. There are also some cases related to compensation pending at the court. We cannot make any comment regarding those cases. Once the court issues its verdict we will act accordingly. None of the representatives are actually against the road-widening process. They are just lobbying for compensation of the houses and land.

When will the road-widening process be completed?

We have planned to complete the road-widening process within three years. However, there are still many cases pending at the courts. Some contractors have also not been able to complete the work within the deadline. I already mentioned that we have a huge resource gap. It is an amazing situation whereby some government agencies are not being able to spend their allocated budget whereas we are facing shortage problems.

You have spoken about resource crunch but the Ministry of Finance has been consistently insisting that there is and will be no shortage of funds for projects that have been doing their work on schedule. So, where does the problem lie?

We completely finished the budget of last fiscal year within the first quadrimester. Then we applied for an amendment to our programmes. However, since the local level elections were about to be held and the election code of conduct was in place, MoF did not provide any extra budget. After the elections, we went to the Finance Ministry seeking an extra budget to complete our works but they asked us to get an approval letter from the National Planning Commission (NPC). At the end of the last fiscal year, we submitted the letter of budget assurance from MoF to NPC, which then approved the amended programme. However, MoF still has not released the budget.

The Ministry of Urban Development has planned to construct four mega cities around Kathmandu Valley. People living in the areas where the new cities are planned have complained that they are not getting permission to construct houses. What is happening on that front?

To construct the mega cities we first need to select a consultant through international bidding. We were not able to select any as they did not meet our requirements when we first called the tender a few weeks back and we are now in the process to reopen the tender. For other cities the consultant selection process is ongoing. Regarding the complaints that you mentioned, we have told the concerned people to begin with the construction of their houses. In fact, we have even allowed landless quake victims to build their houses there. We have also allowed the people there to plot their land by staying within our guidelines. We have already sent these issues to the Physical Infrastructure Committee to get them endorsed by the Cabinet too.

KVDA has started developing river-based corridor in the Valley but implementation has been slow. When can we expect the project to be completed?

The Kathmandu metropolitan city initiated the Dhobikhola corridor in 1998-99 but after six years it was handed over to the Kathmandu Valley Town Development Committee. We have been able to open the track for the entire length of the corridor which is 22 kilometres. Initially, we did face problems regarding the land acquisition process to build bridges but they have been cleared now. A major reason for delay in this project is the multiple sewerage pipes that are directly connected to the river. The High Powered Committee for Integrated Development of the Bagmati Civilisation and KVDA are jointly working to manage the sewage system. At times we have been facing problems with the two different contractors employed by the high powered committee and KVDA as they are at odds regarding certain issues. Work on the Bagmati corridor is also going on. Road construction at Jagriti Nagar and the area close to Baneshwor Campus is being delayed. We also plan to move ahead with works at Mahadev Khola, Sangla Khola and Nakhkhu Khola. In the Nakhkhu Khola corridor, we need at least Rs 600 million but the government hasn’t allotted the required amount. Another factor that has been hindering us is that the number of bridges in Kathmandu Valley is also very high.

You have mentioned that one of the major goals of KVDA is to improve the lifestyle of people and to increase economic activities in the Valley. How will you work on it?

Definitely, road-widening and planned development will improve people’s lifestyle and increase economic activities. Easy transportation services save time of the public. Kathmandu is becoming an expensive city as we do not have any urban settlement plan. If we can diversify our development plans, economic activities in different regions will also rise. People will shift to different areas.

You have begun the outer Ring Road project. What is the progress till date?

Detailed Project Report of Satungal-Chobhar section of this project has been approved. We had applied for the land acquisition process at the District Administration Office but it refused to publish a notice for land acquisition. We then apprised the Ministry of Urban Development on this issue. We will now have to wait for a decision from the Cabinet before we can move forward. Once we have been able to finalise the works on this section then only will we move ahead with other sections.