The Kathmandu Metropolitan City on Saturday dumped a truckload of dirt and trash outside the Road Division Kathmandu office, claiming that the delayed road expansion work from Kalanki to Maharajgunj had caused problems for the public.

Taking to social media, Kathmandu Mayor Balendra Shah blamed Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport Raghubir Mahaseth for not expediting the road expansion.

If your direct order can stop an ongoing project, it can also complete the work, Shah said.

“For the past 15 years, the citizens of Kathmandu have had to breathe in dusty air and face hardships in the name of Ring Road expansion,” reads Shah’s status posted on social media.

Mayor Shah also sarcastically warned that the KMC would send a truckload of dust as a gift to Minister Mahaseth every day until the work along the Ring Road section is expedited.

“It does not look good for only the public to suffer. I will continue to send a truckload of dust to you as a ‘gift’ every day until the work is resumed. Please accept it as love,” Shah wrote.

The widening of the 8.2km Kalanki-Maharajgunj section was set to be carried out by the Chinese government, and the work was initially planned to start from early 2020, but the project has not progressed even after years.

Earlier, in January 2019, the Chinese government had handed over the 10.5 km eight-lane Koteshwar-Kalanki section of the Ring Road to the Nepal government.

This is not the first time Mayor Shah has issued such a warning to the federal government and other state agencies.

In April last year, the metropolis office stopped collecting garbage from Singha Durbar, the central secretariat of the federal government, and other VIP addresses such as the Office of the President at Sheetal Niwas and prime minister’s residence at Baluwatar.

At the time, he had said that wasn’t a decision made on a whim but was rather a result of the “neglect, lack of responsibility and carelessness shown by the federal government”.