Koteshwor-Kalanki road widening project nears completion

LALITPUR, Aug 12: The Koteshwor-Kalanki road widening project has neared the completion. The project that remains as the country’s first eight-lane road is likely to be completed by coming December. According to Engineer Niranjan Sharma Aryal, 97 percent progress has been tracked on the 10.4 km project contracted to the Chinese Company Shanghai Construction Group.

Along with the project, works relating to the construction of an underpass, the first of its kind in Nepal, have now been almost finished.

Under the project, only a section stretching to 1.4 km at Balkhu is left to be blacktopped.

The underpass covering 800 meters from Kalanki Chowk to Khasi Bazaar area is likely to come into operation within a couple of days.

The project that began four years ago had a deadline of 40 months and the deadline was extended by a year bearing in mind the nationwide impact on development efforts caused by the earthquake and southern unofficial border blockade. The project got it deadline extended the time for being unable to meet the second deadline that ended last July.

The total technical human sources used in the project were from China while manual workers consist of a mixed group. A total of 60 Nepalis and 200 Chinese are working on the project. As shared by engineer Aryal, the cost of the project is one billion. RSS