The construction of the Butwal-Belhiya trade road has hit another setback due to lack of sand and gravel. The project had stalled following last year’s devastating earthquake and subsequent fuel shortages.

The six-lane highway in south-western Nepal, which links the trade hub of Butwal with the Indian border 24 km to the south, is being built at a cost of Rs5.5 billion. Although supplies of gasoline and construction materials have been arranged, the project has been hit by a shortage of gravel and environmental issues.

Four of the six contractors for the construction of the road have abandoned the project completely, while the other two are engaged in chopping down trees and digging up old pavement, project engineer Lila Bahadur Bhandari said. “We had planned to blacktop 5 km of the road this fiscal year which would require 142,000 cubic metres of sand and gravel,” he said, adding work had been hampered by unavailability of sand, stone and gravel.

The project has only 5,000 cubic metres of sand and gravel with it. “We can’t do anything without these construction materials.”

The Butwal-Belhiya road is among the trade routes the government has identified for improvement in a bid to boost trade between India and China through Nepal. The project launched in 2011-12 and the government had planned to complete it in five years. As per the plan, 75 percent of the work should have been completed by now. However, only 11.1 km of the highway, or 49 percent, has been finished so far.

The project has spent Rs1.87 billion as of March. Delays have led to cost overruns, and officials say the project will now cost Rs5.5 billion compared to the original estimate of Rs4.2 billion.

The project has brought construction materials from Chitwan, Dang and Kapilvastu in a bid to ensure that work didn’t stop. However, shipments of sand and gravel from other places have stopped.

The project has repeatedly written to the District Development Office to ensure supplies of sand and gravel after work came to a halt.

As per the guideline issued by the office last year, projects are entitled to extract sand and gravel from rivers where an environmental impact assessment has been conducted. Using excavators to remove resources from rivers has been banned, so projects have to hire labourers for this activity.