BAJURA, APRIL 22
A blacktopping project on the Martadi–Kolti road section in Bajura district has ground to a halt, with the contracted company repeatedly failing to begin work and forcing hundreds of millions of rupees in allocated budget to be returned unspent each fiscal year.
The Infrastructure Development Office in Achham said PS Baniya Construction Service, which holds the contract for the 26-kilometre blacktopping stretch from Chuthi to Kolti, has not commenced work even as the current fiscal year draws to a close. In the previous fiscal year, Rs 135 million of a Rs 150 million budget was returned unused.
This year, despite a Rs 200 million allocation, not a single rupee has been spent, and the office warned that the funds are again likely to lapse.
Office chief Jang Bahadur Thapa said the contractor has shown no willingness to mobilise despite repeated deadline extensions. The office recently issued a 15-day public notice warning of contract termination and requesting the contractor to come forward with cause, but the deadline passed without any response from the company.
PS Baniya Construction Service won the contract at Rs 501 million, against a tender estimate of Rs 980 million, for the 26-kilometre stretch from Chuthi to Kolti and signed the agreement in July 2020, with a three-year completion deadline. Five years on, only around 50 percent of the work has been completed. The office has extended the deadline multiple times to no avail.
Local resident Shankar Bahadur Chadara said the road closes every monsoon due to the incomplete blacktopping, cutting off communities along the route during the rainy season.
The Martadi–Kolti road stretches a total of 41 kilometres, reaching Koltigaun in Budhiganga Municipality-2. The road project falls under the provincial government's multi-year plan, with 50 percent contribution from the federal government and 50 percent from the provincial government.
The full blacktopping of the 41-kilometre road was tendered in three packages at a combined cost of Rs 1.57 billion. More than Rs 350 million had already been spent on the road prior to the blacktopping contracts being awarded.
The road was first inaugurated on February 19, 1999, by then District Chairman Lal Bahadur Thapa, with a target of reaching Kolti by 2003.
Twenty-six years later, it remains unfinished.
