Kathmandu, November 20
The Prachanda-led government is preparing to scrap all understanding and deals a previous government had reached with an Indian company for the construction of the Kathmandu-Nijgadh Fast Track.
Government itself will build the Fast Track as a public road.
When Sushil Koirala was prime minister, the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure had a detailed project report prepared. The report had recommended awarding the project contract to IL&FS, an Indian company.
This move triggered a strong opposition, pointing that the contract will cause the country a loss of Rs 40 billion. Then KP Oli government had maintained it will develop the project on its own and allocated Rs 10 billion for the same.
Now, the Prachanda government is also saying it will develop the project on its own.
Despite these commitments, project development work has not moved ahead. As construction work will not move ahead without scrapping of deals with IL&FS, the government is preparing to scrap the same.
Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport, Ramesh Lekhak, told a joint meeting of the parliamentary Finance and Development Committee meetings: My ministry has made up its mind to scrap all understanding and agreements reached with IL&FS, the POI notice issued on September 10, 2014 and the IL&FS proposal registered as per RFP.
The Council of Ministers, though, has yet to make a final call on the issue.
According to Lekhak, now the government will develop this road as a Public Road Express. Lekahk said (unlike fast track) users will not have to pay additional taxes for using this road.
Lekhak said this project will not have the private sector and individuals as owners, so there will be no tax involved.
He said they have constituted a committee under National Planning Commission Vice-chair to advise the government on Fast Track construction.
At the meeting, Minister for Finance Krishna Bahadur Mahara informed that governments have so far allocated Rs 10.013 billion for the project. Mahara said there’s no fund crunch for the project, adding that failure to spend the budget is the real problem.
