Chinese technical team in Kathmandu for design works of Express Way project

 A technical team of a Chinese company has arrived in Kathmandu today by chartered flight for design of Express Way.

The Chinese team has been awarded the contract for the Kathmandu – Terai Expressway Project. The 14-member technical team that includes Poly Changda Engineering Corporation’s tunnel, highway engineer and manager will start design the project work, according to Brigadier General and spokesperson of the Nepali Army Santosh Ballabh Poudel.

Nepal Army awarded the contract to the Poly Changda Engineering Corporation for the second package, some 1.37-km from Simpani in Dhedre of Makwanpur to Chalise Kholsi and 1.4-km from Ghattepakha in Lendanda to Bandrekholsi, where they will construct two tunnels and bridges.

Nepal Army signed an agreement worth Rs 28.53 billion was with Poly Changda Engineering Corporation on April 13.

However, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) had directed to stop pre-qualification and start a new process saying that there would be no competition, if only one company was selected in the package. But with the Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli's back up the Nepal Army did not back off the agreement and went on with the Poly Changda Engineering Corporation to start the work.

The PAC had asked to stop the contract suspecting that there might have been a big manipulation. But the Nepal army has moved ahead with the construction in defiance of the PAC directive saying that it is in accordance with the Public Procurement Regulations and the Act.

There are three tunnels of about 6-km on the Express Way.

The first package that includes a 3,300-kilometer tunnel under construction at Mahadevdanda, a motorable bridge and a road section was commissioned by China State Engineering Corporation Ltd. The contract was awarded at a cost of Rs 21.61 billion for the first package that will also start soon as a team from the company is also conducting a survey.

The Nepal Army has planned to complete the design in 6 months and construction in 3 years.

Nepali Army claims to complete Expressway on time

Nepali Army claimed that it committed to complete construction of Kathmandu-Tarai Expressway on time – by May 13, 2024 – though it has been delayed due to some technical reasons including cabinet’s delay in endorsing Detailed Project Report (DPR).
Organising a press meet at its headquarters today, the Nepali Army Brigadier General Sharad Lal Shrestha, who heads the Expressway Project, said that they are preparing for an integrated package of high bridges, tunnel and road works after they received DPR from the government. “The army expects to complete the 72.5-km long Kathmandu-Nijgadh Expressway on time and also hand it over to the government.”
Shrestha said that the army is currently in the process to shortlist consultants for geo-technical and geophysical investigation of the areas, where tunnels are being built as part of the Expressway. Stating that geo-technical report will be ready by mid-July 2020, he said that the construction of tunnels will be started by the selected international construction companies.
On the occasion, Nepali Army spokesperson Brigadier General Bigyan Dev Pandey also informed that the construction is expected to gain momentum after the cabinet approved its detailed project report (DPR) on August 21. “The DPR of the project had been submitted by a South Korean firm Soosung Engineering and Consulting Company to the Nepali Army on February 4. The DPR was later forwarded to the cabinet for approval by the Ministry of Defence on March 16.”
According to the new DPR, the project will be constructed according to ‘Asian Highway Class I’ standards, which means the highway will have four or more lanes and the construction material used for the pavement will be asphalt or cement concrete.
Likewise, the construction cost of the project has been estimated at Rs 175.19 billion – which is Rs 63.19 billion more than the earlier estimate of Rs 112 billion – according to the new DPR. “The consultant has determined the estimated cost of the project based on the government set rate and international standards,” he claimed.
Of the total 72.5-km-long Expressway, some 55.2-km stretch will be roads, 6.41-km tunnels and the remaining 10.59-km will be bridges, according to the DRP that has planned three tunnels – one 3.35-km-long tunnel in Mahadev Danda of Lalitpur district, another 1.63-km-long in Dhandre Danda and the third 1.43-km-long tunnel in Len Danda of Makawanpur district – apart from 71 small and big bridges along the Expressway.

Nepal Army shortlists six firms to build bridges along Express Way

The Nepali Army (NA) today shortlisted six international contractors for construction of 62 high-arch bridges along the 76.2-km-long Kathmandu-Tarai-Madhesh Expressway.
Asking the interested companies to submit their proposals based on engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) model, the army had called a global tender bid to submit the proposal for the construction of the bridges on April 5.
According to the army, five Chinese firms and one Turkish construction company have been selected in the initial phase. The shortlisted companies are China State Construction Engineering Corporation, Hunan Road and Bridge Construction Group Company, China Railway 20 Bureau Group Corporation, COVEC-CREGC Joint Venture and Longjian Road and Bridge Company Limited of China, and Dogus Insaat Ve Ticaret AS & Makyol Insaat Sanayi Turizm Ve Ticaret AS Joint Venture of Turkey.
"According to the tender notice, the company that has been selected will be responsible for building 62 bridges out of the 99 bridges," NA spokesperson Brigadier General Gokul Bhandari said, adding that the remaining bridges will be built by the Nepal Army. "The selected firm will be responsible for the design, planning, engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, operation and maintenance of the high-arch bridges."
The Nepali Army will further study the technical and financial proposals of the six shortlisted companies and will soon select the best company.
Earlier, the Nepali Army had decided to award the contract to conduct the detailed project report (DPR) of the Expressway to a South Korean joint venture company called Yooshin and Pyunghwa on September 19. The Korean joint venture company will submit the DPR by February, and the project is expected to be completed four years after the DPR has been submitted.
The Nepali Army has been assigned the responsibility to construct the Expressway, which it has separated into three segments. Out of the 76.2-km-long expressway, it plans to construct 17-km on its own, hire dependable Nepali contractors for 37-km of the stretch and sign up foreign contractors for the remaining 22.2-km of tunnel and bridge sections.

DPR of Kathmandu-Tarai-Madhes Expressway by February 2

The detail project report (DPR) of Kathmandu-Tarai-Madhes Expressway will be completed by February 2, 2019. Nepal Army (NA) and South Korean company Soosung Engineering today signed an agreement on the preparation of DPR of the national pride project Kathmandu-Tarai- Madhes Expressway.
Project Chief and Major General of Nepal Army Yogendra Bahadur Khand and Chairman of the Korean company Keehyun Hwang signed the agreement at the Army Headquarters to complete the DPR.
According to the agreement, the DPR should be completed within 1105 days beginning from October 21 in a total cost of Rs 101 million. The Korean company was selected for the DPR job – out of a total of 16 consulting firms that had applied – as the earlier DPR prepared by the Indian company Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IF&FS) has been alleged for its high price. The Indian firm IL&FS has asked minimum of Rs 600 million for the DPR of Kathmandu-Tarai-Madhesh Expressway.
The Cabinet had handed over the Kathmandu-Tarai-Madhesh Expressway to the Nepal Army last year to complete the project within 5 years.
After failing to purchase the DPR prepared by an IL&FS, the Nepal Army had called an Expression of Interest within April 12, which was extended twice until April 28 due to technical reasons.
A total of 16 firms, including a domestic one, had shown interest to prepare the DPR of the national pride project. One year into construction, the Nepal Army is carrying out preliminary works without a DPR of the expressway that is expected to bring the Capital and Nijgadh in Bara within an hour’s drive.
The Army, which has begun construction of the 76-km road is working on the basis of a feasibility study conducted by the Asian Development Bank in 2008. The Army is clearing trees and acquiring land in the project area.

Nepal Army might buy DPR of expressway from Indian consortium

The Nepal Army – which has been authorised to construct the Kathmandu-Tarai expressway by the government – might buy the Detailed Project Report (DPR) from an Indian consortium to expedite the construction of the strategic road.
As the Indian consortium including Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) Transportation Networks, IL&FS Engineering and Construction and Suryavir Infrastructure Construction has already prepared the DPR of the 76-km roadway, the Army has thought of using it to save the time and money to redo the DPR.
The Technical Department of the Nepal Army has started the process of hiring consultants to determine, if the DPR prepared by the Indian consortium is suitable for adaptation. The team will go through the report and advise the division whether it could be used.
Though the Army has said that a formal decision is yet to be made, it has no option than to buy the DPR of the expressway with the Indian company to start the construction immediately after the monsoon.
But the Indian consortium has asked the government to pay Rs 600 million for the DPR as it could not get the contract to construct the expressway.
According to the contract between the Indian consortium and the government, the government should compensate the Indian consortium for the DPR, if government scraps the agreement. "If the Army adopts the DPR, it will pay the compensation," according to the Army source.
If the Army decides not to purchase the DPR, it will have to prepare a new one, which will take quite some time delaying construction of the express way that is expected to reduce travel time – between Kathmanu and Nijgad in the south to less than an hour – and petroleum consumption also.
 The DPR had proposed building a four-lane expressway of Asian Class-1 Standard. The expressway should be 23-metre wide in the hills and 25-metre wide in the plains, it explains, adding that the expressway will also have around 100 bridges, including 35 smaller ones, and two tunnels that are 11.3-metre wide and 5.5-metre tall.
Initially – in February 2015 – the government had assigned IL&FS-led consortium to build the expressway as it was shortlisted as the potential builder of the expressway.
The consortium had agreed not to charge the cost of the DPR, if it was allowed to construct the project. It had submitted the report to the Sushil Koirala-led government in June 2015.
But the Koirala-led government did not award the contract to the Indian consortium due to congroversy on annual minimum revenue guarantee of up to Rs 15 billion a year, if the  road traffic failed to generate adequate profit.
After increased controversy, the government scrapped all the agreements with the Indian firm.
Later a high level committee formed under National Planning Commission (NPC) vice chair Dr Min Bahadur Shrestha in February suggested the government construct the expressway using its own resources but could adopt the DPR prepared by the Indian company to save time and money.
However, the government, in May, decided to hand over the project to the Nepal Army despite wide criticisism also for not involving the private sector, and involving the Army in to the business. Earlier when the Army had opened the track of the expressway, it was accused of embezzling funds.

Delay in construction of expressway costing the country Rs 8 billion annually

The government is starting construction of Nepal's first expressway very soon as the delay has been costing the country dearly, according to minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport Ramesh Lekhak.
Speaking at the meeting of Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) today, Lekhak said that he would forward the proposal to start construction of the Kathmandu-Tarai Expressway in the cabinet very soon.
The delay in construction of the express highway has been costing the country more than Rs 8 billion every year. Due to recurring controversies and delays, the project’s original cost estimate of Rs 56 billion has doubled to Rs 112 billion in seven years, which means the price tag has been swelling by Rs 8 billion annually after adjusting for inflation.
The minister also told the parliamentary committee that the government would set up a special purpose vehicle to build the expressway as per the report of the Study Committee led by National Planning Commission (NPC) vice chair Dr Min Bahadur Shrestha.
The committee led by Shrestha has recommended to the government set up a separate mechanism for construction of the expressway.
He also informed that the ministry is dealing with three processes simultaneously – resource management, procurement model and establishment of a separate mechanism to execute the five-year project in line with the recommendation of a government committee.
“We will soon prepare a project modality and table it at the Cabinet," he said adding that that a separate mechanism would be formed to execute the ‘public expressway’ as it could be a ‘reference document’ to call for bids under the EPC model. "The report will be used as a bill of quantities (BOQ), a document usually used in tendering in construction projects."
However, the Indian firm IL&FS has sought Rs 600 million from the government for the DPR.
The 76-km expressway that connects Kathmandu with Tarai-Madhesh in just an hour can be split into at least two sections to procure contract services, the study committee had suggested, recommending to build the first of its kind of expressway in Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) modality to save time and money.
Speaking at the meeting, transport secretary Dhan Bahadur Tamang told the parliamentarian that the 76-km expressway project may go for the EPC model instead of the build own operate transfer (BOOT) model proposed earlier.
The EPC contract binds the contractor to deliver the project at a stipulated time with predetermined price regardless of any increase in cost that the contractor may incur after the contract is signed.
Once the contract for the project is awarded, the contractor will prepare a detailed engineering report which will ascertain the real cost. The IL&FS – in its DPR submitted to the government in 2015 – had estimated Rs 112 billion, whereas a study conducted by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 2008 had estimated the project to cost Rs 56 billion. The cost was revised to Rs 96 billion in 2014.
One of the reasons for the project's delay is also the recurring controversies regarding the price tag.
In the meeting too, a number of lawmakers said that the cost estimate for the scheme was unrealistic.
Lawmaker and former finance minister Bishnu Poudel, on the occasion, said the government should agree to the EPC model and invite bids immediately. "We need to prepare a time-bound calendar to successfully execute the project," he said, warning that it will remain a distant dream, otherwise.
The government has recently announced that it will construct the highway by allocating around Rs 20 billion every year for five years.
Poudel also asked the government to immediately start the construction of the highway without further delay according to the previous government's plan. "The previous government had also allocated Rs 10 billion budget for the expressway," he added.
Poudel as the finance minister – in the erstwhile government led by KP Sharma Oli – had allocated Rs 10 billion for the project in the current fiscal year. But the budget has not been spent at all because of the delay in finalising project development and financing modality.
However, the National Pride Project has not been able to spend its budget due to various technical problems including dispute in compensation for land to be acquired for the project.
Kathmandu-Tarai-Madhesh expressway project chief Satyendra Shakya said that the change in construction modality has also delayed the project.
Lawmaker Ramhari Khatiwada said Nepal’s roads were being used as trial and we should be careful on whether the fate of the expressway would be like that of the BP Highway, a section of which crumbled a couple of days ago.
Likewise, the Lawmakers, on the occasion, demanded the government to expedite the construction of Kathmandu-Tarai-Madhesh expressway as it will be a milestone in the country's transportation network and can cut transportation cost, fuel consumption and time taken for transporting goods and traveling significantly that would also strengthen the national unity, the committee opined.
Concluding the meeting PAC chairperson Dor Prasad Upadhyay said the next meeting is expected to discuss the issues of the expressway again and come up with a substantive decision on the matter.

Track to be opened to motor traffic
The Department of Roads said that it was planning to open the track of the proposed Kathmandu-Tarai-Madhesh expressway to motor traffic. Director general of the department Devendra Karki said that they had been conducting repairs at Chhaimale, Dakshinkali and Nijgadh to allow vehicular movement. The Nepal Army started work to open a track in 2009 November as per the government’s instructions. It was completed in 2013.