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KATHMANDU, MARCH 30

If you have ever lived in the Kathmandu Valley and then moved away, inevitably, you'll tell people that you miss something about the city.

It's not the beauty of the valley surrounded by hills, the historical temples and stupas, or the squares. It's without a doubt the pollution, dirty streets, the never ending road works, and the list goes on.

Throughout the valley, roads are being dug, electric lines and water supply lines are being laid, and many new projects are coming up.

Due to the never-ending demolition and construction of roads, piles of excavated earth lie heaped by the roadside for an indefinite period. As a result, the valley has become a big construction site, making it an eyesore and more crowded than before.

The capital is already one of the most polluted cities in the world. And if this was not enough, it has been blanketed by a toxic haze since Friday.

In my locality, the road work has been going on for more than five months now. The strange thing about this repair and maintenance is that the roads are dug up repeatedly by different agencies for different purposes, leading to continued public sufferings.

Just as the signboard reads, 'work in progress', it will always be work in progress. I wonder about the pace of work here.

There is almost nothing done in an organised way.

In a report published by the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority, 2075 BS, there were 906 delayed construction projects under the Department of Roads, Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transportation. Some 1,848 projects were not completed in time.

Similarly, under the provisions related to project termination and extension of time, 1,032 projects have neither been terminated nor their time extended. So, these projects simply do not exist.

Nepal is in the process of development and is carrying out 21 national pride projects at present. Yet, these projects will never be completed within the stipulated time frame.

This is a sign that there is no imagination or the competence to solve even very simple problems.

If these simple problems have stayed unresolved for years, now imagine the difficulty in completing some mega projects that are in the pipeline.

Now, what is hindering the projects from moving ahead at the desired pace? The problems are clear, and ways to improve on the situation are also well known. It is, thus, high time for the government and concerned authorities to push these projects towards their timely completion without causing much enconvenience to the public. Time is very important to move ahead.

A version of this article appears in the print on March 31, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.