The Ministry of Urban Development under the Federal Government was in the spotlight during the nationwide coronavirus lockdown as it remained busy carrying out maintenance of roads in the Kathmandu Valley as well as in other parts of the country. Consequently, most of the roads in the capital valley looked better. But many of those shining roads have now turned into muddy ones. The road at Chabahil of the capital, among others, could be a glaring example. Travellers passing through this area are now facing a lot of inconveniences because the road is in shambles. This is the area where the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has carried out the task of laying electricity cables underground. However, the NEA is yet to blacktop the road. It is not certain when the road is going to be restored to shape.

There is a paradox that the cycle of repairing roads by one agency and damaging them by others seems to have been going on in the country for years. The Department of Roads (DoR) is solely responsible for building roads and repairing them. But the DoR always faces hurdles in maintaining the given standards of such important infrastructures for lack of proper coordination between the NEA and Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL). According to a news report carried by this daily on Wednesday, the roads repaired and maintained in different sections of the Kathmandu Valley were damaged while installing and repairing the drainage system, water pipes and laying of power cables. However, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) has already been signed between various government authorities to maintain the roads after accomplishing their respective tasks. But various agencies have remained reluctant to abide by the understanding. The DoR has categorically blamed the NEA and KUKL for failing to work as per the understanding.

The DoR is reported to have blacktopped about 50-km road in the Kathmandu Valley out of 56-km estimated for the fiscal year 2019/20. The DoR officials said a shortage of labourers stopped it from accomplishing the work. The department was able to blacktop some 736-km of roads nationwide, with a 61 per cent achievement. The agency also gravelled a total of 886-km roads out of 1,200 targeted while it built 395 tracks out of the target number of 500. The department repaired and maintained 310-km road out of 524-km and built 170 bridges out of 300 during the same period. The Butwal-Narayangadh Road Project also could not move ahead as planned since the Chinese contractors who went home in January could not come back due to the spread of the coronavirus.

Road and other development projects also do not get completed on time due to utter negligence on the part of locals as well as foreign contractors. There is also a tendency among the authorities concerned to implement the projects at the end of the fiscal year just to accelerate the budget spending. Thus, the quality of work of the projects suffers. The dearth of good coordination among various development agencies such as the DoR, NEA and KUKL often leads to increased level of dust pollution in the valley. It also causes more road accidents and air pollution. There should be a separate mechanism to enhance cooperation and coordination among different stakeholders to ensure timely completion of development projects.