According to the District Development Committee, the district has a total of 1,416 kilometres of road network, including rural tracks that connect almost all VDCs to the district headquarters. However, vehicles ply on only five routes.

Traffic police said only a 108 kilometre section, including the five rural routes—Aarughat-Gorkha, Baluwa-Gorkha, Benighat-Phujel, Gorkha-Thakarpokhair and Gorkha-Bunkot, is motorable at present as the other routes are damaged by rainfall.

Krishna Bahadur Karki, an official at the DDC, said though the rural roads were constructed due to pressure from locals, it will take a huge amount of budget to improve these road tracks.

The length of dirt road expanded dramatically in the past few years as even the VDCs allocated huge amount of budget in road projects, and sometimes without proper planning and consulting engineers.

Officials said roads were constructed haphazardly as VDCs are autonomous bodies and they do not need DDC’s permission.

The total length of blacktopped road, however, is just 70 kilometres.

Amrit Gurung, a transport entrepreneur, said they could not run vehicles in all rural routes as their condition is dilapidated. Police record shows that at least eight major road accidents were reported in the district this year alone mainly due bad condition of the road, in which seven people lost their lives.

Chief District Officer Bed Prasad Kharel said they were preparing to consolidate budget to mainstream road improvement projects. “We are also consulting concerned contractors to improve existing roads,” he said.