Nepal and India are expected to sign letters of exchange (LoE) for the construction of Hulaki Road (postal highways) during the upcoming India visit of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
Nepal and India are expected to sign letters of exchange (LoE) for the construction of Hulaki Road (postal highways) during the upcoming India visit of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
PM Dahal, speaking at a meeting of the Parliamentary Development Committee on Monday, said a new deal will be signed on postal roads during his visit to New Delhi.
As per the new understanding, an Indian grant of IRs5 billion (NRs8 billion) will be used for 11 postal roads while Nepal will finance the other six road stretches.
The two countries had signed a memorandum of understanding on the project during the visit of erstwhile Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli to India in February. The signing of the LoE is expected to expedite the construction of the much-talked about Postal Road whose development has been marred by multiple issues.
India had committed IRs 5 billion for the construction of the 518km road that links the southern border to the headquarters of Tarai districts in the first phase.
However, due to increased costs caused by the delay in constructing as well as their planned upgradation to double lane, the amount will not be enough for the construction of the 17 roads.
“There has been consensus with the Indian side that Nepal will appoint contractor even for the roads which will be constructed with the Indian aid while the southern neighbour will appoint the consultant,” said Sanjaya Shrestha, deputy director general of the foreign cooperation branch at the Department of Roads.
The National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (NHIDCL) of India will work as the consultant for the project.
As the contractors appointed earlier by India ran away without making any headway in the construction of the road sections, Nepal had been asking the Indian side to allow it to choose the contractor following Nepal’s public procurement procedure.
Nepal plans to seek India’s help also for the second phase of the project under which around 1,000km of the road from the East to the West will be constructed. The government estimates the cost of the second phase of works to be around Rs30 billion.
During Indian PM Narendra Modi’s visit to Nepal in August 2014, the prime ministers of the two countries had directed their concerned authorities to work on the second phase of the construction.
Prithvi Man Shrestha is a political reporter for The Kathmandu Post, covering the governance-related issues including corruption and irregularities in the government machinery. Before joining The Kathmandu Post in 2009, he worked at nepalnews.com and Rising Nepal primarily covering the issues of political and economic affairs for three years.
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