The federal government is preparing to transfer responsibility for the construction and maintenance of several roads and bridges to provincial governments. At present, both the Department of Roads under the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport and provincial government agencies have been involved in parallel repair and construction work. This has often led to overlapping responsibilities and inefficiencies in road maintenance.
The Department of Roads is currently taking care of 80 national highways and an additional 3,078 kilometers of feeder roads. As per the plan, the department will continue handling national highways, while the responsibility for feeder and provincial roads will gradually shift to the respective provinces. Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Devendra Dahal, discussed the matter with ministers and secretaries of all seven provincial governments earlier this week. He said the division of responsibilities between federal agencies and agencies of provincial governments was felt as the demand for the construction and maintenance of multi-lane roads rises at the province levels.
The necessity was also felt as budget allocations for the Road Board Nepal for road maintenance has been declining in recent years. For example, the board has been allocated only Rs 2.88bn for the current fiscal year even though it had sought an allocation of Rs 10.03bn. In 2013, the ministry was tasked with maintenance of 21 national highways and 209 feeder roads. The list was revised to a total of 80 roads including national highways and some strategic feeder roads. Now the ministry is preparing to hand over roads not included in this list as well as other roads and bridges built under the Local Roads Bridge Program to provincial governments.
Three provincial governments—Koshi, Bagmati and Sudurpashchim—have already published official notices listing 1,588 kilometers of provincial highways under their jurisdiction. They are expected to resume responsibility for maintenance of these roads within the current fiscal year. According to the Department of Roads, Koshi, Madhesh, and Bagmati Provinces have 452 km, 613 km, and 808 km of provincial highways and feeder roads, respectively. Gandaki has 310 km, Lumbini 418 km, Karnali 150 km, and Sudurpashchim 328 km of such roads.
