People in Zhemgang town are unhappy with the slow progress of the widening and blacktopping works of the town’s internal road. The work has been delayed by six months. The widening works began in early 2021.
The widening and blacktopping works along the two-kilometre stretch of the double lane road from Dangkhar-Poktor to Bhutan Oil Distributor depot was supposed to complete by October last year. But the road remains dusty and bumpy even to date.
“We do not understand whose failure it is; whether it is the failure on the part of the monitoring agency or the contractor. The work remains incomplete even after two years. It looks like they are planning to blacktop the road when the monsoon approaches. If that is the case, then the blacktop will get damaged,” said Pema Samdrup, a resident of Tali in Nangkor Gewog.
The residents are also raising concerns over the quality of construction of steps, railings, drains and walls which are all a part of the road widening package. They are calling for the concerned authorities to monitor the work quality before it is too late.
“It is supposed to be completed but we see some works are still incomplete. Moreover, the quality is not up to the mark along the stretch where works have been completed. We can see the poor quality of walls and footpaths with lesser cement and more sand mixture,” said Gem Tshering, a resident of Trong Gewog.
Moreover, residents said some stretches of footpaths are still under construction which would take some more months to complete.
The Zhemgang District’s Chief Engineer, Luv Kumar Chhetri, said the quality could have been compromised as they could not bring in skilled workers.
“But overall, we have not compromised on the quality. Wherever necessary, if we failed to achieve the quality, we have demolished, dismantled and we have asked the contractor to redo or it has been done.”
Owing to the delay in the completion of road widening works, the town is unable to lay electric cables and telephone wires underground, or remove the electric poles.
The chief engineer said the pandemic delayed the completion of work as they could not bring materials and skilled labourers on time to the site:
“During the execution time, some unforeseen calamities have occurred. And the land profile is not really strong. So, because of that when we did the excavation, there were certain damages to private properties. Therefore, our project got delayed as we got to rectify those defects which have incurred additional works to the contractor.”
The contract time has now been extended to the end of April. The project is being executed at a cost of Nu 25 M.
Pema Samdrup, Zhemgang
Edited by Phub Gyem
