Soon after the local level elections in 2017, the people’s representatives of Tansen Municipality in Palpa district selected 15 development projects as ‘pride projects’. Among them, the municipality prioritised five projects—all the pride projects are left in limbo.

While a few projects started so far are moving at a snail’s pace, the majority of the pride projects are yet to be initiated.

The municipality had invited a tender to pave granites along around 800 metres from Bhagawati Temple to Silkhantol through Shitalpati two years ago.

CM Shivalaya JV was awarded a contract valued at Rs 18.3 million. “The contractor has already received Rs10 million, but it has completed only around 12 percent of the work,” said Bishnu Paudel, the planning officer at the municipality. The contractor is now out of contact, leaving the project incomplete. “We wrote to the contractor many times. He assured to resume work soon but to no avail,” said Paudel.

Tansen Municipality has set aside Rs420 million for the pride projects. The municipality allocated Rs98 million to the projects in the current fiscal year. However, the progress both on financial and physical fronts of such projects is negligible.

Mayor Ashok Kumar Shahi admitted the delay but assured that works on the pride projects would be completed as soon as possible.

The municipality also includes the waste management of Tansen, the district headquarters of Palpa, in the list of the pride project. The local unit planned to construct a landfill site at Shivapokhari to manage the garbage. But the project is left in limbo due to protests from the local people.

Similarly, the municipality’s plan of constructing a bus park in Bandevi and installing a Buddha statue named Big Buddha in Shreenagar has yet to kick off. According to Mayor Shahi, a master plan of Big Buddha is in the final stage. “We will soon invite tender and initiate the work,” he added.