Construction of Mechi-Mahakali Electric Railway has been halted in Rautahat district due to the protest of some local people, demanding compensation for the land acquired for the railway project.

The protesters obstructed the construction work at four places along the Bagmati-Dhansar section. The disputes in three places involve unregistered land while one is about private land.

The railway track construction work from the Bagmati river in the east to the Dhansar river in the west is in the final stages. Although the construction company aims to complete the work by March 2025, the ongoing protests over land compensation pose a huge challenge.

According to Kiran Karki, chief of Sarlahi office of Mechi-Mahakali Electric Railway Project, the local people obstructed the construction work near the Chandi stream, demanding compensation for the unregistered land that they have been using. “The residents do not have ownership documents. As per the existing legal provisions, compensation cannot be issued for unregistered land. The locals have been disrupting the construction work. And we are awaiting the directives of the centre on how to proceed,” said Karki.

Although the government does not provide compensation for unregistered land, the residents have time and again obstructed construction work over the past two years. According to Karki, there is also a dispute regarding the unregistered land spreading in around 100 metres near the Lamaha stream.

The protesting locals are hell-bent not to allow the contractor to carry out work until they are paid compensation. Saroj Chaudhary, a local in the Chandi area, says he would do all to obstruct the work “if the authorities attempted to make the agitating locals homeless.”

“The government has to provide us compensation for the land that we have been using for years. Otherwise, we won’t let the project continue its work at any cost,” said Chaudhary.

Similarly, construction of railway track has been stalled in the Santapur area after a landowner refused to receive the compensation stating that the amount offered was too low compared to the current market rates.

The landowner said that the compensation amount set by the Compensation Fixation Committee is far less than the prevailing rates in the market. The committee has fixed the compensation amount ranging from Rs300,000 to Rs1.6 million per kattha [3,645 sq ft] of land.

Construction of railway track is underway in Rautahat section under five different packages. Roshan Kumar Shrestha JV, Santoshi Construction, Lumbini Apex, Hindung Thokar and Golden Biruwa JV were awarded the contract in the Rautahat section.

The contractor had to complete the project, which began in August 2019, by January 2022. But the track construction work has been delayed due to protests by the locals regarding the compensation amounts, the Covid pandemic, and bureaucratic hurdles in obtaining permission for felling trees in the forest area, among others.

The landowners along the alignment of the planned East-West Electrical Railway at ward 8 of Chandrapur, Rautahat, had obstructed construction work over land compensation for months claiming they were not getting the reasonable price for their land. They had even attempted to attack the contractor and obstructed the work.

The 945 km Mechi-Mahakali Electric Railway is one of the government’s national pride projects. A total of 22 km lies in Rautahat district. According to the railway project, around 80 percent work has been completed in Rautahat section so far. “It seems that construction work in Rautahat could not be completed by mid-March due to the protest. There is no alternative to extending the project deadline,” said Karki.