Irrigation structures collapsing due to road construction

In the current Fiscal Year, Rs 400,000 has been allocated for construction of unpaved roads in Balewa of the Parbat district. When the road is built, vehicles will reach the homes of some families. The budget is sufficient for the construction of unpaved roads by installing machines, but no one has thought about the irrigation canals to be destroyed by this road.

During the construction of the road, the irrigation canal in the field is broken. The 200-year-old bridge was renovated a few years ago at a cost of over Rs 1.5 million. No one is interested in destroying the structure built at a cost of Rs 1.5 million while constructing the new road .

"It used to be a 400-acre paddy field. Since there is already irrigation here, the production of paddy is sufficient," said Indra Raj Poudel, chief of Jamini municipality. Poudel is also a local of Chauragaun.

This problem is seen in most of the development works in the district. Irrigation and drinking water structures have been damaged due to construction of most roads. Four drinking water projects of Jamini Municipality-1 Kushmishera, which were damaged due to construction of road from Githe of Amalachaur to Patlekhet of Baglung Municipality-12, have not been rebuilt even after one and half years. The drinking water project constructed at a cost of millions of rupees has been destroyed by the unpaved road.

The drinking water of Kushmishera Bazaar has been damaged due to the upgrade of the road from Kushmishera Bazaar to Kaligandaki Corridor. There is shortage of drinking water in the area where the municipal office is located. "We have to end the habit of spoiling one work while doing another. We have to see if there is anything wrong with the construction of the road," said Padma Bahadur Shrish of Sainik Tol, who is also the chairman of Kushmishera Bazaar Management Committee.

The road from Kushmishera Bazaar to Damek via Kanle has been upgraded by the state government. After the drinking water project collapsed there, the chairperson of the consumer committee reached the municipality to ask for a drinking water reconstruction. "There are no resources to repair the project. You can't work outside of the estimate," said Chhaya Dutta Chapagain, chairman of the Consumers' Committee.

Damage to existing structures should be repaired from the previous plan. However, most of the work done by the Consumers' Committee does not have an estimate of the damage to the structure and only works as per the estimate lack of cost for maintenance.