By Hari Prasad Koirala, Urlabari, Mar. 31: The 25.40 km long road section stretching from Kanepokhari to Rangeli of the postal highway in Morang district has been handed over to the community by the Kanchanjunga Nirman Sewa, the construction company of the road.

This road that links East-West highway with Biratnagar-Rangeli-Aambari road is considered to be the oldest road in the district. This road has been termed as the first postal highway of the district as well.

Locals of the road areas have been elated seeing that the road section has been finally blacktopped after decades.

The road section was enlisted as priority road for blacktopping even during the Panchyat Rule (before 1990), but many construction companies which won the bid for blacktopping it had fled away before completing the road, which had made the locals doubtful about the road getting blacktopped soon.

When an Indian company started its construction in 2011, the locals' optimism revived, but then the company left the project in halfway.

Four years after the Indian company gave up the project, a Nepali construction company, Lama, Danfe, the Kanchanjungha Construction Pvt. Ltd won the tender 2017 to blacktop the road within two years and hand over it to the Postal Highway Project.

However, construction of the road took much longer than that due to the COVID-19 pandemic and other reasons.

The road was constructed with the financial assistance of Rs. 700 million from the government of India.

Tendi Sherpa, board member of the construction company, said that 99 per cent of the construction works was completed and that remaining works would be finished with a short period.

Inaugurating the road section, Tara Bahadur Kafle, Chairman of Kanepokhari Rural Municipality, said that the road would not only make it easy for the locals to commute but also help in increasing their economic growth.