Kathmandu-Tarai expressway achieves tunnel breakthrough

Kathmandu / May 17: A 1.43-km-long tunnel breakthrough on the Kathmandu-Tarai expressway was achieved on Friday.

The final point of one of a ‘twin tube tunnel’ at Lendanda has been completed and preparations for the completion of the other one are underway, said Brigadier General Gaurav Kumar KC, also the spokesperson for the Nepal Army.

Of the 1.63-km-long tunnel at Dhedre tunnel site, 1.506 kilometres have been cleared and only 124 metres remain, KC added.

Likewise, only 1.197 kilometres of the Mahadevtar tunnel, the longest in the project, is left to be cleared of the total 3.355 kilometres.

The Kathmandu-Tarai Expressway, or fast track, connects the capital city and Nijagadh in southern Nepal with a 76-km highway. Once completed, it will cut the current travel time by several hours. With 11 km in bridges and 6 km in tunnels, the expressway is more complex than any road construction project Nepal has undertaken before.

The Nepal government on May 4, 2o17 formally handed over the project, under the Department of Roads, to the Nepal Army. The national force started building the multi-billion-rupee project in August of the same year with a four-year completion target.

However, in December of 2023, Nepal Army Chief Prabhu Ram Sharma, presenting a bleak picture of progress at a parliamentary committee meeting, said that the highway might not be ready even three and a half years from then.

The project has been split into 13 packages, with the army yet to award contracts for the 6.5 km area at the Khokana-Bungamati area in Lalitpur, Makwanpur and Nijgadh, due to land acquisition at the entry point yet to be completed.

So far, the expressway has made an overall progress of 33.99 percent.