Narayangadh-Muglin Road Project has planned controlled blasting at Chepangdanda to expand the road section. 

Engineer Shiva Khanal of the project said they were unable to widen the road due to difficult terrain.

“We have been struggling to open up a nine-metre road stretch. There is a hill on one side and the Trishuli river on the other,” Khanal said.

“In the past, we had decided to build a cantilever structure to widen the road, but we have now decided to conduct controlled blasts for the purpose.”

The consultant of the project has approved the controlled blasting in Chepangdanda.

“Now the Department of Roads should sanction the decision. We have been telling the project officials all along to conduct controlled blasting for speeding up the construction works,” said Shishir Kandangwa, manager of Supreme Rautaha Joint Venture which is handling the 12-km-long third phase of the project.

“If we start cutting Chepangdanda using machines, it would take six months only to cut that hill,” Kandangwa estimates, adding that they have to chisel around 200 metres of hills, including Chepangdanda along that stretch. As such the contractors believe the controlled blasting is the only way out to complete the project on time.

Kandangwa said they would be holding a detailed study of geographical condition before going for the blasting to prevent landslides in the surrounding areas.

Around 75 percent of the project works has been completed. The project has completed a single layer of black topping on 18km road stretch and a second layer on 15km. Another 7km of the road has been readied for a single layer of black topping. The road will be widened up to 11 metres from Aaptari to Jugedi, and up to 9 metres till Muglin.

The 33.2-km section of the route that links Prithvi Highway and East-West Highway carries the heaviest traffic in the country, accounting for 90 percent of Nepal’s total international trade traffic.

More than 20,000 vehicles ply the highway daily. The road is being expanded to a double-lane road with a width of 9-11 metres with the Rs3 billion-aid package from the World Bank. The current width of the road is 5.5 metres.