Lalitpur, July 4:

Vehicles ferrying passengers along the Gwarko-Mangal Bazaar-Sundhara route have been facing problems due to the ongoing work of sewage pipeline installation, a part of the Rs 30 million road project, on the main road section connecting Gabahal to Mangalbazaar. The project has been going on since May.

Fifty-six electric and gas vehicles, which used to cruise along the Mangalbazaar route, have been forced to cruise on narrow, alternative routes.

Basudev Deuja, president of the Mangal Bazaar Unit of the Vehicle Entrepreneurs’ Association of Nepal, said maintenance expenditure per vehicle has gone up by 100 per cent as their vehicles started plying along other routes.

According to Binaya Shakya, proprietor of the Yala Charging Station, minor accidents and traffic jams have become common problems on these narrow and zigzag routes.

Due to this different and uneven route, a vehicle that used to take 45 minutes on an average to complete the Gwarko-Mangal Bazaar-Sundhara loop now completes the loop in an hour.

The construction of road sections is the largest project of the LSMC this fiscal, said Prem Raj Joshi, executive director of the Lalitpur Sub-Metropolitan City (LSMC).

The LSMC and the Ministry of Finance had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on May 12, agreeing to allocate a budget of Rs 30 million for the construction of 34 road sections in the Patan area.