The land acquiring process of the much-hyped Outer Ring Road Project is set to accelerate within this month after the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) forwards the proposal for the same to the Ministers of Council. The Kathmandu Valley Development Authority (KVDA) had forwarded the land acquiring proposal to the MoUD on July 17. However, the ministry is just gearing up to submit the proposal during the Cabinet meeting. Urban Development Minister Dil Nath Giri informed that he will submit the proposal to the Cabinet meeting within the next few weeks.
“I have studied the plan and it will be forwarded to the Cabinet as soon as possible. I assure you that the project will be inaugurated within this December,” Giri said. “I don’t know why the ministry took such a long time to submit the file to the Cabinet, but I have prioritised some projects after my appointment in the ministry and Outer Ring Road is one of them.”
After the Cabinet meeting endorses the proposal, the KVDA will get the authority to start the land acquisition process for the 6.6-kilometre-long Chobhar-Satungal section of the project. KVDA had planned to begin the land acquisition process of the project from the beginning of the current fiscal year. However, due to delay in the decision-making process, it is yet to begin other works related to the project.
Earlier, the KVDA had approached the District Administration Office Kathmandu for the approval of land acquisition process. However, the administration office refused to take action according to the request of KVDA to advance the project.
“After the chief district officer refused to publish a public notice on land acquisition, we forwarded the proposal to the line ministry. However, the ministry is also taking a long time to push the project on the agenda of the Cabinet,” an official of KVDA said.
Numerous works related to the project, including forming local consumer committees in the aforementioned section, have been pending due to delay in the decision-making process. “We plan to form 12 consumer committees in this section, however the KVDA has been unable to move ahead due to delay in decision over land acquisition process,” said an official at Outer Ring Road Development Project (ORRDP).
According to the detailed project report (DPR) of the project approved by the government on April 26, 7,800 ropanis of land would be needed to construct this section.
The government is planning to develop wider roads and integrated settlements on both sides of the Outer Ring Road. The consumer committees and ORRDP will jointly fix the boundaries of land and the number of houses that would need to be demolished to implement the project.
ORRDP will be responsible to open the track of the 72-km-long project in the initial phase. It will also have to construct the retention walls on both sides of the 50-metre-wide road in this phase. During the second phase of the project, the road will be black-topped and four flyovers will be built at major junctions.
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