Udayapur, January 15

Tippers ferrying limestone beyond road capacity for two cement factories in Siraha have put the Mirchaiya-Katari road section in a sorry state.

Katari locals had filed a complaint with Udayapur District Administration Office after the Katrai-Mirchaiya road section was dilapidated due to tippers carrying limestone beyond the road capacity for cement factories. Following the complaint, Udayapur CDO Pradip Raj Kandel issued a directive to the tippers not to carry load beyond the road capacity.

The field inspection by CDO Kandel carried out three times had found tippers carrying the load way beyond the capacity of the road. Tippers ferrying cement for Cosmos and Maruti cement factories were found to be carrying up to 22 tonnes of limestone though road capacity was 10 tonnes. Local social worker Ram Kumar Rai of Katari Municipality said excessive load of the tippers had completely damaged the road. “Black-topping of the road has come off at many places,” Rai said.

Limestone is being extracted from Sindhuli’s Kakurthakur for Maruti and Udayapur’s Katari-based Sirishe mine for Cosmos Cement Industry. Tippers use this road section to ferry limestone for both the industries. Some 500 to 1,200 tippers ply the road ferrying limestone on a daily basis.

In the presence of CDO, representatives of both the cement industries had pledged not to carry the load beyond the road capacity in writing.

Kalu Danuwar of Katari-3 said the tippers followed the rule for some days. But, now they had again started carrying limestone beyond the road capacity defying the CDO’s diktat.

Traffic police personnel deployed to check the load carried by the tippers seems to have turned their blind eyes to the overload.