Khotang locals stage strike for road blacktopping

By Our Correspondent,Khotang, May 2: Local representatives and locals of Khotang under the leadership of Provincial Assembly member Panch Karna Rai organised a transportation strike on Sunday. 

They staged the strike against the contractors for delaying the blacktopping works on the Mahure-Foksingtar road section under the Gaighat-Diktel Sagarmatha Highway in Khotang district. 

The blacktopping of Mahure-Foksingtar road which had started by dividing it into two sections has been stalled for a long time. Provincial Assembly member Rai, Deputy Mayor of Diktel Rupakot Majhuwagadhi Municipality Bisan Rai, ward chairs and other residents organised the strike demanding that the blacktopping work should immediately be started. They stayed on the road at Mahure for one and a half hours.

Rai informed that they did not have any option but to organise the transportation strike to warn the contractors. He said that if the contractors did not return to the construction sites within mid-May, they would launch a mass protest after that.  Out of the two sections of Mahure-Foksingtar road, the contract to blacktop 22-km road at Simpani of Mahure-Rajapani road was assigned to Bharat Construction-Siddhishahi JV and the contract to blacktop the 27-km road of Simpani Bhanjyang-Foksingtar was assigned to Devnarayan Pawan-Mainachuli-Khampache JV.

The contract was signed on July 14, 2016, with an agreement to completer the construction by July 13, 2020. Later, the date was extended till July 2023. 

But the construction company has been out of contact since January 2023.