Officials responsible for carrying out periodic maintenance - the task that maintains the original carrying capacity of the road - of the roads agree that major highways have been losing their original strength to withstand increasing load due to low priority of the government amid rising number of vehicles. [break]
Kamal Raj Pandey, joint secretary at the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works (MoPPW), said strategically important roads are rapidly losing their strengths due to lackluster attitude of the government for the maintenance of these roads.
“Generally, a blacktopped road has to be completely renovated within five to ten years from its construction. But it is rarely followed,” Pandey told myrepublica.com. He further added that major roads like Kathmandu-Muglin, Birgunj-Hetauda and other strategically important roads have not been maintained even after the completion of their designed life.
Kathmandu-Mugling and Birgunj-Hetauda roads were upgraded in early 1990s and were to be repaired within 10 years. However, the government failed to do the needful for maintaining these strategic roads on time. Most of the highways in the country are designed, assuming that their loads do not exceed 10.2 tons.
“Whatever maintenance has been done so far is water sealing and surface dressing. These alone can´t maintain original strength of the roads. We need a complete overhaul of these roads,” said Pandey, adding, “The unhealthy practice of overloading vehicles has further deteriorated major roads.”
Most of the vehicles carrying timber, cement, rod, sand, pebbles and other construction materials are behind deteriorating roads, according to the officials.
Talking to myrepublica.com, Ram Kumar Lamsal, director general of Department of Roads, agreed that major roads are deteriorating due to increasing traffic flow beyond the carrying capacity of the roads.
Since the government priority is in investing on new projects instead of maintaining existing roads, it allocates negligible budget for periodic maintenance of existing roads.
“However, the government, albeit lately, has now realized the importance of periodic maintenance of roads and allocated Rs 700 million for the purpose in this fiscal year. The amount will be increased to at least Rs 1 billion for next year,” Lamsal told myrepublica.com.
The government had set aside no budget for the periodic maintenance of the roads last year. Lamsal also informed that the timely repair of the roads have been hampered due to negligible budgetary allocation.
As per the international practice, budget allocation for maintenance of roads should be at least 2 percent of total construction amount, officials said.
The government has invested about Rs 500 billion for the construction of roads so far.
prabhakar@myrepublica.com
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