Around a year ago, Binod Lama, a local from Kakani Rural Municipality-6, died inside the ambulance ferrying him to a hospital in Kathmandu, after the vehicle was stuck on the local muddy road for hours.

After the death of Lama, a driver by profession and the sole breadwinner of his five-member family, the financial condition of his family has sharply deteriorated.

“Patients dying inside ambulances and women in labour delivering on the way have become common in our area,” said Bhim Maya Tamang, 42, from Jurethum Bazar of Kakani Rural Municipality-6. “It will not be a new thing, if someday, we ourselves become the news. Lama’s wife was traumatised by the death of her husband and stopped talking to people.”

The Kakani-Ranipauwa area along the Pasang Lhamu Highway had a vibrant economy until 10 years ago, when the road was in good shape. People from the Kathmandu Valley and other districts would go there for refreshment. Kakani is one of the top picnic spots and even school and college students of Kathmandu and surrounding areas used to visit it during the weekends.

The highway, which was once the lifeline of thousands of people in the Panchmane area of Kathmandu and Nuwakot, has been neglected for years. People living in the area do not have any means of transport, which has deprived local farmers from selling their agricultural products—milk, vegetables, and fruits.

Many locals of Kakani Rural Municipality the Post talked to said their lives had become too tough after the authorities dug up the single-lane road to make it a double-lane, some 10 years ago.

Now with the general election just a week away, all political parties have promised to complete the unfinished road-work, but the people are not in a mood to listen to them.

“All the leaders coming to us for votes promise to build the road, but we have no trust in them,” said Sanjib Lama, a local of Kakani-2, who runs a small shop. He was forced to downsize his restaurant after the business dropped due to the wretched road.

The contract of Shailung Construction, which had won the tender for widening the road section from Balaju to Ranipauwa, was terminated some two years ago. Nobody knows when a new tender process will start.

“After the vehicles stopped running on the road section, hotel businesses dried up, which has directly affected the employment of hundreds of people,” said Laxmi Lama, another local from Kakani Rural Municipality-6.

“Locals, who used to survive by selling milk, chickens, vegetables and fruits, have also been affected a lot.”

Even the chairman of Kakani Rural Municipality of Nuwakot, Suman Tamang, acknowledged that some people have died on the highway due to obstructions on the road caused by landslides, while many women have given births on their way to the hospital, as it takes hours to reach Kathmandu.

The chairman said he had spoken to leaders from the ruling and opposition parties and ministers, and they all know the problem. The leaders, according to Tamang, have told the locals that construction would be started at the earliest, but the problem was with the investment. “We have requested the government to open tender for the roads immediately after the elections, and the government should itself arrange the funds.”

Meanwhile, milk and vegetable collection from the area has halted. The locals have to travel around 150 kilometres to reach Kathmandu, by the way of Trishuli and Galchhi. Many locals, who were engaged in vegetable farming and animal husbandry, have now been forced to go abroad for their survival.

“Locals in our area could survive easily by selling fruits and local agricultural produce, but now they are struggling just to survive,” Tamang told the Post. “We have problems reaching the hospital on time due to the poor road.”

Two daughters of Bhim Maya Tamang of Kakani-6, 19 and 21, were forced to seek jobs in Qatar and Dubai within a span of a year after they completed their school-level education. She could not afford to pay rent for her small restaurant. “We had no option as my husband returned from abroad with a fragile health after he was involved in an accident,” said Bhim Maya, sharing her story. “Now we survive with the money sent by our two daughters.”

The negligence of the political parties in maintaining the highway has forced youths to look for jobs abroad as the people living close to it are increasingly facing hardships to survive, disconnected as they are from Kathmandu and the district headquarters.

“To reach Bidur [the district headquarters of Nuwakot, which is around 35 km away] we have to go to Kathmandu first and then travel through Galchhi or from Chhahere,” said Kanchha Lama, a local from Kakani-2. “It now takes two-three days to reach the district headquarters and return home.”

Now, with no public vehicles plying the road section, locals say they were compelled to take either the route of Galchhi in Dhading district or Tokha Chhahare in Kathmandu to reach Trishuli and beyond Dhunche, the Rasuwa district headquarters.

The locals are also having difficulties accessing health facilities given the difficulty in transport.

“Binod Lama died inside the ambulance because it took several hours to clear the mud on the road,” Thulo Kanchha Lama, 50, of Kakani-6 said. “Had the road been a little better, we could have saved him. Our leaders are responsible for the death.”

According to the restaurant owner Bhim Maya, Kumari Lama, a local, was among the women who gave birth inside the vehicle on their way to Kathmandu last year.

Locals have protested to highlight the bad condition of the highway with political leaders and their elected representatives from Nuwakot constituency 1. They had taken to the streets and even blocked the road section to build pressure on the leaders, but to no avail.

“We had to stop our protests when we realised that they could halt even the limited travel on the road section,” said Indra Manandhar, 48, a local of Kakani Rural Municipality-2.

Interestingly, the same people who were elected from the area in the 2017 general elections are candidates of major political parties—Nepali Congress, CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Centre) and CPN (Unified Socialist)—in the next week’s elections. One of them is Hit Bahadur Tamang, who is a common candidate of the ruling alliance.

There is little hope for the locals who wish for some relief after the elections as the political leaders remain non-committal.

Tamang, the candidate having the best prospects of winning the upcoming polls, refused to comment when the Post asked him as to why the road section had not been repaired yet.

“It takes time to explain and I can’t talk now,” Tamang told the Post.

A small portion of the 70-km dilapidated road falls inside Kathmandu constituency-7, where candidates from different parties are in the fray.

One of the candidates, Manushi Yami Bhattarai, representing the ruling alliance, said she is well aware of the pathetic condition of the Pasang Lhamu Highway.

“Not only the people residing in my constituency, lots of others from adjoining areas of Nuwakot have also been suffering from dilapidated roads,” said Bhattarai. “This issue should be addressed from the central level. I will draw the central leadership’s attention to the road’s condition and the people’s suffering.”