Hulaki Road: Construction still incomplete even after extension of deadline five times

Mahendranagar, April 6 : Construction of the Hulaki Road aka the Postal Highway here has not completed even after six years of deadline. The construction of 62 kilometres section of the highway from Dokebazaar to Bedkot of Kanchanpur district should have been over in 30 months had the construction works moved ahead smoothly.

The contract for this was signed in March 2017. Twenty-six kilometres of the section of the highway in Kanchanpur district remain to be blacktopped. Engineer at the Hulaki Highway Project Office, Deepak Sunar accepted that there has been delay in the construction of the highway. “The delay was due to the COVID-19 pandemic and taking approval from the National Park Office. The construction is not complete yet even after extending the deadline for five times,” he said. Construction of 62 kilometres of the Hulaki Road was begun after awarding the contract in three phases. The first phase included the 20 kilometres road construction from Dokebazaar to Belauri. Ninety percent works have been completed on this section. However, the construction remains uncompleted in the remaining two sections. The Sharma-Rajendra JV had been awarded the contract for construction of the road in the first package at a cost of Rs 364.7 million. The estimated cost for construction of the 20 kilometres road from Belauri to Beldandi under the second package is Rs 414.1 million. Only nine kilometres of the road in this section has been blacktopped so far, Sunar said. The construction has halted at Chui area on this section due to the obstruction from the Indian side. The Indian security bodies have obstructed blacktopping the road in this location claiming the road lies within the Indian territory.

The Babahansa Siddhisai JV, the construction company responsible for carrying out the construction under the second package, has hardly completed 50 percent of the work. Similarly, only eight and half kilometres of the 22-kilometre section of the highway from Beldandi to Daiji has been blacktopped under the third package in a span of six years.