Holding a review meeting of 11 projects, which he tagged as projects of national pride, the PM also instructed Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation to take immediate steps to develop second international airport in Nijgadh under build-own-operate and transfer (BOOT), inviting investment from private firms - domestic or international. [break]
During the meeting, Minister of Physical Planning and Works, Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation, Minister of Irrigation and Minister of Energy, among others, said most of the 11 projects were being implemented smoothly.
However, they acknowledged the pace of implementation of Kathmandu-Tarai Expressway, Mid-Hills Highway, Sikta Irrigation and 450-MW Upper Tamakoshi has moved on slowly, despite all their efforts.
Official of energy ministry even informed the PM that they might not be able to complete Tamakoshi before 2017, as instructed by the PM, while officials at Ministry of Physical Planning and Works (MoPPW) said lack of adequate budget and huge compensation amount required for land acquisition mires their effort to complete the opening of track of Kathmandu-Tarai Expressway within this fiscal year.
MoPPW also informed the PM that the implementation of Mid-Hills Highway has remained slower on the western parts of the country. “In fact, because of locals´ resistance and other factors, we will probably not be able to open 30km stretch of the highway in Rukum district. Otherwise, we will open the rest of the tracks by the end of this fiscal year,” a source quoted Secretary of MoPPW as saying.
As in the past, Melamchi Drinking Water Project remained the most dismal project. So far, only 4 km of the 29 km long tunnel have been dug and even the process of building water treatment plant at Sundarijal has moved on slowly.
As for projects, for which the PM committed to develop their detailed project report (DPR) within a year, concerned officials said they have already initiated processes for conducting DPR of Budi Gandaki reservoir-type project and East-West Railway.
After listening to the briefings, PM Bhattarai urged the concerned officials to marshal their human resources efficiently and work with a clear cut work plan with well worked out deadline.
Finance Minister Barsha Man Pun, on the other hand, expressed his commitment to provide sufficient budget to the ´national priority project´ whenever they sought for it.
“We have already allowed the respective ministries to utilize the unspent budget and also permitted them to transfer budget from slow-paced projects so that national pride projects do not face financial crunch,” the source quoted Pun as saying in the meeting.
Related story
RSP ministers vacate quarters despite continued support for gov...
_20230226123652.jpg)
