A tunnel breakthrough at Lendanda on the under-construction Kathmandu-Tarai expressway was achieved on Thursday.

According to the Nepal Army Directorate of Public Relations and Information, a 1,612-metre tunnel, one of the twin-tube tunnels, in Lendanda, located in Bakaiya and Gadhi rural municipalities of Makawanpur, achieved a breakthrough.

It is the third tunnel breakthrough in the Kathmandu-Tarai Expressway which connects the capital city with Nijagadh in southern Nepal with a 76-km highway.

Chief of Army Staff Prabhu Ram Sharma virtually inspected the tunnel breakthrough. Sharma said other tunnels of the expressway were also in the process of achieving a breakthrough, and the army was responsibly fulfilling the duty assigned by the government, according to the NA.

Earlier on May 24, a 1.653-km-long tunnel breakthrough on the expressway was achieved. The final point of one of the twin-tube tunnels at the Dhedre tunnel site in Bakaiya Rural Municipality of Makawanpur was completed.

On May 17, a breakthrough of a 1.633-km-long twin-tube tunnel at Lendanda was also achieved.

Once completed, the expressway is expected to cut the current travel time by several hours. With 11 km in bridges and 6 km in tunnels, the expressway is more complex than any road construction project Nepal has undertaken before.

The Nepal government, on May 4, 2017, formally handed over the project, under the Department of Roads, to the Nepal Army. The national force started building the multi-billion-rupee project in August of the same year with a four-year completion target.

The project has been split into 13 packages, with the army yet to award contracts for the 6.5 km stretch at the Khokana-Bungamati area in Lalitpur, Makawanpur and Nijgadh, due to the issue of land acquisition at the entry point yet to be resolved.