Ministry, which was entrusted to open the six-lane 76 km road linking Kathmandu and Nijghad, had recommended the cabinet to form a six-member high level committee to prepare basic documents needed for inviting bids and selecting investors few weeks back.[break]
"The Cabinet endorsed our proposal last week. The committee will start its function immediately," Hariom Srivastav, joint secretary at MoPPW told Republica. The government´s plan is to build the fast track under build-own-operate-and-transfer (BOOT) mechanism.
The high-level committee, which is assigned to prepare the guidelines for selection of investors, is led by by Birendra Bahadur Deuja, former director general of the Department of Road (DoR).
"Ram Ayodhya and Hari Prasad Dhakal, both are former division engineers of DoR, Dinkar Shamara, director general of the DoR and representatives from MoPPW and Ministry of Finance (MoF) are other members of the committee," said Srivastav.
According to Srivastav, the ministry has provided three months to prepare the guideline“. "Ministry will proceed to get expression of interests from different investors after the committee finalizes the guidelines," he said. However, the committee won´t have any authority to screen the final investors.
Ministry has allocated Rs 1.9 million for the committe. "The money will be used as remuneration for members of the committee," Srivastav shared. According to Asian Development Bank´s 2008 estimate, the project will cost Rs 67 billion.
Kathmandu-Tarai Fast Track is one of the prioritized projects of the government. Track opening works on 51 km of the 76-km expressway has already been completed.
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