An agreement was signed on Wednesday to allow the felling of trees along the southern section of the Seti Highway. The Ministry of Forest and Environment and the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport reached the agreement, with Acting Chief of the Seti Highway Project Birendra Bahadur Chand and Deputy Director General of the Department of Forest and Soil Conservation Ajit Kumar Karna as signatories.
With this agreement, long-stalled work on the highway can now resume. According to Information Officer Keshav Dutt Mishra, permission has been granted to fell 2,785 trees on 80 hectares of national forest land to construct a 40-kilometer road section between Thuligad, Seti, and Budhi Ganga in Doti. Mishra noted that the agreement was signed without depositing the Rs 400m typically required in the Forest Development Fund.
“The process can now move forward,” Mishra said. “The forest department will carry out another on-site inspection. Once the selected trees are marked, felling will begin.” In accordance with Subsection (1) of Section 42 of the Forest Act 2019, 80 hectares of national forest in Badikedar Rural Municipality-1, 2, 3 and 7 and Bogtan Rural Municipality-3 in Doti will be cleared.
Former Kailali Constituency-2 MP Jhapat Rawal said that the legal hurdles to tree felling have finally been resolved after sustained effort. He criticized what he called impractical forest laws, which he said had obstructed progress on this pride project of the Far West. “The Seti Highway should have been included in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), but unfortunately, it wasn’t,” he said. “It has taken far too long to implement the Cabinet’s decision. The Seti Highway should be developed as a ‘game-changer’ project.” Rawal also claimed that progress has stalled because some groups have misrepresented the highway, which he described as a tri-national route tied to the region’s prosperity.
Felling was previously delayed due to repeated non-implementation of Cabinet decisions. As a result, road construction in the Thuligad area of Doti has been held up. So far, only 126 kilometers of track have been opened in the 204-kilometer southern section. The remaining 78 kilometers are still unopened. The southern section passes through Kailali (72 km), Achham (80 km), Doti (40 km), and Bajura (12 km). Of these, two kilometers in Kailali, 40 in Doti, 24 in Achham, and all 12 in Bajura remain to be opened.
The Seti Highway aims to connect Tikapur in Kailali to the Tikune border crossing with India via Baunia, Doti, Achham, Bajura, Chainpur (Bajhang), and Taklakot in Tibet. The 352-kilometer highway is being constructed in two sections. The southern section is administered from Sanfebagar, while the northern section—148 kilometers in length—is managed from Chainpur, Bajhang. To date, only 72 kilometers of the northern section have been opened.
