Only 45 percent of the work has been so far completed in Nawalparasi eastern section under the Narayanghat-Butwal road expansion project.

Over half of the project work is yet to be completed with about six months left for the deadline to expire, Road Expansion Project's eastern section chief Ashish Thapa Magar said.

The Narayanghat-Butwal road expansion work was initiated in 2075 BS. Since then, the deadline has been extended twice. The second extension will expire in mid-July.

He further shared that 90 per cent of the work will believably be completed during the period. According to him, the construction company will be responsible for repair for five years even after the construction of the project, so the progress should be 90 percent by mid-July considering post-construction repair work as about 10 percent.

"Looking at the current physical progress, at least monthly seven percent progress has to be made to complete the road expansion work on time. However, the work progress is sluggish, Magar said. "We have been repeatedly instructing the contractor to speed up the work", Magar added.

Stating that the manpower and machinery used at present are insufficient, he said that the China State Construction Engineering Corporation, the contractor, is being directed to complete the work within the stipulated time using adequate resources.

According to him, the pace at which the progress should have been achieved is low. The 113-km Narayanghat-Butwal section of the East-West Highway covers about 65 kilometers in the Middle East section.

A six-lane road will be constructed in the market area with service lanes, three in the Daunne section and four lanes in other areas. So far, only 21 kilometers of two-lane road has been completed in the eastern section. About 125 kilometers of road has to be constructed after calculating the two-lane road except the part of the bridge. In this way, more than 100 kilometers of blacktopping is yet to be done. "The blacktopping of about 21 kilometers has been completed by calculating the one-way calculation," the project chief said.