The team comprising two under-secretaries from the PMO, two engineers from the Department of Roads, representatives of the Department of Transport Management and senior police officials found that most vehicles plying the road carry 8 to 10 tons more than the limit prescribed by DoR.[break]
Likewise, the weighing machine to check if vehicles are carrying too much load was found not to have been installed near Dharke as directed by the PMO.
Tipper-trucks are allowed to carry 7-8 tons at a time as per existing regulations.
Talking to Republica, Under-Secretary Narayan Timsina, who was in the field inspection, said most of the directives given by the PMO were found not implemented. “We checked some 20 vehicles to see if they were carrying too much load,” he said. “Most of them were overloaded.”
Secretary at PMO Leela Mani Paudyal had given a directive some three months ago to check overloaded vehicles, carry out road maintenance including black-topping and install machines to weight the loads carried by vehicles plying the road section, after seeing the pitiable state of the road while returning to Kathmandu from his ancestral home in Gulmi. The PMO had deployed the team on Friday to see whether or not the directive was implemented and submit a report.
According to Under-Secretary Timsina, the Department of Roads was also found not to have black-topped the road as per the PMO directive that black-topping be carried out with budget money left unspent due to various reasons.
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