Dhangadhi, August 28

The under-construction Geta Medical College in Dhangadhi, Kailali, has been facing a dearth of construction materials after the government imposed a ban on collection of stones and sand from rivers and streams for the months of Shrawan and Bhadra.

Medical College Infrastructure Construction Committee Executive Director Hemraj Pujara said they were facing crunch of boulders and sand. “The contractor has kept a crusher at the construction site, but we have failed to process the materials,” Pujara said.

Pujara further said since the project is huge, it is not possible to procure the materials from small crusher industries. He said they were trying to make arrangements for supply of stones and boulders. “It is not prudent to halt construction work,” Pujara added.

Two buildings — one for hospital and one for medical college — are under-construction. The committee said construction of an administrative building would also start in a few days. Construction of college and hospital buildings started five months ago. The construction company said the temporary ban had obstructed work.

Yesterday, Pujara had met with former prime minister and CPN-Maoist Centre Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal and shared about the progress made. He said that Dahal had pledged to take necessary steps to supply construction materials after consulting the concerned officials and the prime minister.

Contracts were signed to construct the hospital building at a cost of Rs 1.3 billion, the college building at Rs 64 million and the administrative building at Rs 9 million.

The construction work was also delayed due to delay in environmental impact evaluation. The government had declared the medical college would be build on 51.8 hectare eight years ago.

The committee has set a target of start classes and rendering health services within two-and-a-half years.

According to Pujara, classes of MBBS will start after the first phase of construction work is completed and a hospital with 300 beds will be brought into operation after that.

The estimated cost of infrastructure construction in the first phase stands at Rs 10 billion.

The government has allocated nearly Rs 1 billion for Geta Medical College in the current fiscal.