Kathmandu, Aug. 4: Structural defects have appeared on the Rs 17.02 billion Butwal-Narayanghat highway even before it is formally handed over to the government, prompting an independent quality inspection.
The Department of Roads has requested the National Vigilance Centre to investigate after sections of the upgraded highway developed subsidence, cracks and waterlogging, raising questions over construction quality and project supervision.
Officials said the government would not suffer financial losses because the contractor remains responsible for repairing all defects before the project is accepted.
About 93 per cent of the 113-kilometre highway has been completed, and vehicles are already using the road. However, problems have surfaced at three locations before the project’s completion.
Bikash Khanal, information officer of the Butwal-Narayanghat Road Project (West), said about 700 metres of road between Bardaghat and Daunne has subsided and is currently being repaired with earth filling. Cracks have also appeared at Choramara and Chisapani, while water has accumulated in some sections.
Chuda Dhakal, chief of the Asian Development Bank Directorate under the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport, said only 0.01 per cent of the highway had been affected. He attributed the defects to uniform road design despite varying soil conditions, premature blacktopping, overloaded vehicles and the absence of concrete pavement in vulnerable sections.
The project, funded by the Asian Development Bank, was awarded to China State Construction Engineering in December 2018 and has already received four deadline extensions.
A senior ministry engineer, however, questioned the project’s quality, claiming the road was not built according to design specifications. He alleged that only 10 centimetres of asphalt had been laid in one subsided section despite a 20-centimetre design requirement and called for a thorough investigation into construction quality and technical supervision.
People’s News Monitoring Service
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