Kathmandu-Terai Fast Track project sees 26.14 percent progress in its work

Kathmandu / Sept 11: The Kathmandu-Terai Fast Track project (KTFTP) has completed 26.14 percent of the construction work in the past six years.

According to the Nepal Army, the work progress as of mid-July was around 26 percent. The financial progress of the road project is 28.11 percent.

The Nepal Army has undertaken the construction of the fast track project that connects Khokana of Lalitpur to Nijgadh of Bara. The project began on April 25, 2017. The deadline of the project completion has been revised to mid-April, 2027. Out of 13 construction packages of 11 clusters, the packages numbered between 1 and 7 are under construction.

According to the KTFTP officials, the project is now working on assessment of tenders of its 8A, 9A and 9B packages, which include road segments between Makhkhubesi and Sisneri. Likewise, the tenders for segments between Makhkhubesi and Mahadev Tar of the packages 8B and 10 have been opened recently.

Kamal Bikram Shah, chief of the KTFTP, said 95 percent of the packages have entered the process for implementation and procurement. According to him, about 41.57 percent of the tunnel-ways construction has been completed.

The length of the fast track road connecting Kathmandu to Terai is 72.5 kilometers in which 55.5 kilometers of roads, 6.41 kilometers of tunnels and 87 bridges with a total length of 10.59 km are being constructed.

The project is estimated to acquire 15,416 topanis of land, including 10,244 ropanis of public land and 5,172 ropanis of private land. While 4,766 ropanis of private land has been taken for acquisition, still 406 ropanis is left for acquisition.

Likewise, a total of 38,664 trees are needed to be cut down to construct the infrastructure. As of now, 28,646 trees have been cut while clearance of the remaining 10,018 trees is in progress.

After the government handed over the project to Nepal Army, a total of Rs 49.23 billion has been spent as of the fiscal year 2022/23. In the current fiscal, the government has allocated Rs 22.51 billion for the project.