Ring Road expansion to begin on June 1

KATHMANDU, MAY 23 -The much talked about plan to widen the Ring Road in Kathmandu is scheduled to start on June 1. According to officials of the Department of Roads, the Chinese contractor has been making the final preparations to begin work by setting up its office and summoning technicians from China.

Last month, the contractor Shanghai Construction Group Company started survey work to widen the 2-km-long Koteshwor-Kalanki section as a model. Under the government’s Ring Road Improvement Project, 9 km of the road between Koteshwor and Kalanki will be upgraded in the first phase.

“The contractor has informed us that it plans to start work on June 1,” said Ashok Tiwari, chief of the Ring Road Improvement Project. He added that road widening, bridge improvement and building of an underpass at Kalanki would be done in tandem in the first phase.

Initially, two 1-km sections on the Balkhu River-Kalanki and Ekantakuna-Koteshwor sectors will be expanded. Based on these models, the remaining 7-km section will be widened; and two other junctions, Kalanki and Satdobato, will also be improved for uninterrupted operation of vehicles.

The first phase of the improvement plan includes upgrading of the Koteshwor-Kalanki section to eight lanes with a four-lane main road, a two-way service lane, two-way bicycle track and two-way pedestrian path. The first phase of the widening work will take around 40 months. The government has been planning to upgrade the entire Ring Road with the support of China in three phases under the Ring Road Improvement Project.

The Roads Department and the Chinese contractor had signed a pact to upgrade the 9-km Koteshwor-Kalanki stretch last December. Under the agreement, the government is responsible for clearing the space by removing water, electricity and telephone lines, but little progress has been made on this score, said department officials. Many trees remain to be chopped down too.

Last month, the government had directed Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited, Nepal Electricity Authority and Nepal Telecom to relocate their service lines built on either side of the road. The offices of the district commissioners of Kathmandu and Lalitpur under the Kathmandu Valley Development Committee had issued a 15-day notice to clear a 31-m width on the Koteshwor-Balkhu-Kalanki stretch. Department officials said they would write to the concerned offices to remove the power and telephone poles.