Haphazardly piled materials making roads unsafe

BY OUR CORRESPONDENT Biratnagar, July 17: The area in front of the under-construction building of the Koshi hospital in Biratnagar-7, in Morang, has been a scene of disorder these days.

Haphazardly piled construction materials on the Rani-Dharan road along the Koshi Highway has thrown the vehicular traffic into chaos. On a recent afternoon, one rickshaw got stuck there, and it left a trail of other vehicles stuck behind it. 

Bhumi Construction, which is undertaking the task of the construction, has piled the construction materials on the busy road by the hospital. This has made the vehicles passing through the road prone to accidents.  

To the west of the road at Bargachhi, in Biratnagar-5, lies the Radharman Temple. Due to difficulty in navigating the highway, the vehicles are having to pass through the road on the temple premise.  

At present, the old structure of the temple has been demolished. Stones, ballasts and sands are piled outside its gate on the highway nearby, blocking the path for the passersby. 

Badri Prasad Sharma, head of the Six Lane Road Project, Itahari, said that the local level should carry out the task of removing the materials from the road infrastructure. The responsibility falls under local level or local administration, not the road-related office, he added.

He said that the implementation agencies have shown no interest even after he had repeatedly raised the issue that the national highway should neither be a parking space nor a place to pile construction materials.

According to the Roads Act, 2031 BS, if anyone encroaches on roads, pavements or canals or keeps any object there, it can be confiscated and the cost of the confiscation would be recovered from the concerned person, Sharma said. 

Mayor of Biratnagar Metropolitan City, Rajan Poudel, informed that the construction company was ordered to remove the piled construction materials on the road a few days ago. 

He claimed that the process of informing the problem caused by the piling was done first, followed by calling them to the office. 

“When nothing worked despite repeated warnings, the materials have now been confiscated.”  

Paudel informed that the municipal police had picked up a tipper ballast that was piled on the highway from Biratnagar-5 Munalpath a week ago. After that, a notification campaign was launched by intensifying monitoring on the roads within the metropolis. Poudel claimed that 60 per cent of the construction materials placed on the roads has been removed.

Chief of the District Traffic Police Office, Morang, Raj Kumar Karki, said that the risk of accidents has increased due to the heaps of construction materials on the road.

He said that management of roads as well as removal of hurdles should be done from the local level. According to Karki, a parking management plan was being prepared under the road safety action plan of Biratnagar. 

He informed that the district traffic police had prepared an action plan to make the roads free from unwanted materials and submitted it to the local administration.