Villagers of Lamdra village under Boomdeling Gewog in Trashi Yangtse are unhappy with slow progress of construction of river flood protection wall along the Kholongchhu bank.
The contract was awarded to a private company named “Tag Sing Chung Druk Construction” on February 2016 and the work was supposed to be complete on May last year. However, the work is still ongoing at the site.
The 67-year-old Gonpo Tshering has paddy fields on the other side of the Kholongchhu. He said due to incomplete construction of wall, his fields were washed away by the flood last year.
“Since fields have been washed away, I am not able to transplant paddy this time. Although the government has released funds for wall construction, the contractor is not so dedicated. They work for few days and stay ideal for a month,” Gonpo added.
With monsoon approaching nearer, villagers are more worried that the work will be further delayed. “It is almost three years now but the flood protection wall is yet to be complete. Last year, they had dug the area but couldn’t construct the wall since the land washed away by monsoon floods,” said Gempo Dorji.
Villagers have informed the matter to the gewog administration office. The Boomdeling Gup, Mani Wangda said, “By this time, the work should have been complete. But that is not the case. The gewog along with the dzongkhag authority reminded the contractor several times.”
According to the contractor, delay in obtaining stone collecting permit from the wildlife office hampered the work. The other reason for delay was due unavailability of construction materials such as Poly Vinyl Chloride or PVC coated iron wire.
The Site Engineer, Nima Wangdi said the contractor was informed time and again to finish the work on given deadline. But he failed to do so. The Site Engineer added the final deadline has been extended to June this year.
The river flood protection wall is being constructed at a cost of over Nu 21m.
