Nepali Congress lawmaker Gagan Thapa has demanded cancellation of agreements with the contractors that have failed to complete road projects on time. Thapa has written to the Department of Roads (DoR) demanding termination of agreements with four contractors including those owned by Sharda Prasad Adhikari and Bikram Pandey.

The director of Shailung Construction Pvt Ltd, Adhikari is a close family friend and landlord of Nepal Communist Party (NCP) Co-chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal. He is also in the advisory body of the Federation of Contractors’ Association of Nepal.

His political influence is so much so that the erstwhile CPN (Maoist Centre) had nominated his name to the House of Representatives under the proportional representation category.

Similarly, Pandey is a former minister and Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Democratic leader.

Besides the construction firms owned by Adhikari and Pandey, NC lawmaker Thapa has also asked the DoR to terminate the contracts of Tundi Construction Pvt Ltd, Sap Construction Pvt Ltd and Prera Nirman Sewa.

In his letter, Thapa has mentioned that the construction of roads in his constituency, Kathmandu-4, has not progressed. “The contractors concerned do not seem serious about completing the commissioned tasks. There is no need of renewing the contracts of these companies because they have been delaying the works with no apparent reason,” mentions Thapa in his correspondence to the DoR.

He also goes on to mention that Shailunge has not completed the works at Aakashe Dhara,Ram Mandir-Krishna Mandir Road and Sundarbasti, Adarsha Nagar, Chunni Khel, Jagdol, Sahid Park road sections.  The company was supposed to complete the works at Aakashe Dhara-Ram Mandir-Krishna Mandir Road by mid-October, 2017. The deadline for other road sections expired in mid-August, 2017.

Similarly, a joint venture (JV) of Kalika and Sap has failed to complete Tailung School Purba and Deuba Chwok Road in Budhanilkantha. The road should have been completed months ago.

Road projects undertaken by Tundi and Prera have fallen behind schedule. The two companies had landed a JV contract to construct Chunikhel-Chapali-Budhanilkanta and Mahangkal-Bhrikuti Chwok-Tenging Chwok road sections. The contract expired in the third week of May, 2018.

The Ministry of Home Affairs had launched a crackdown against non-performing and under-performing contractors and even arrested some errant contractors recently. The campaign, however, largely failed to take action against politically connected contractors.