The construction is expected to complete by June next year 

The construction of Gong farm road in Sarpang, which was delayed because of lack of budget, is hampered by frequent breakdown of machines.

The farm road, which would benefit about three remote chiwogs of Gongsekha, Gonduegang and Tshetenkhar (Sukumbasi) of Jigmecholing gewog, saw a progress of about 7km in the last seven months.

According to the machine operator at the construction site, Pushpalal Gurung, the work was on halt for more than a week after the hydraulic pipe of the machine burst.

He said the pipe was sent to Phuentsholing to repair and work resumed since yesterday. “Buying a new one turned out expensive and had to resort to repairing it.”

The operator said that deploying an additional machine would speed up the construction.

The Gong farm road construction began in 2008 but it got stalled because of lack of budget. The construction resumed in February 2015 after the gewog took it up as departmental work with an annual budget of Nu 2M.

Jigmechholing gup Kumar Gurung said Nu 6.5M has been spent to construct 34km of the total 46km farm road. The first cutting of the road has now reached Ashinaydara.

He said that Sarpang dzongdag, during his recent visit to the construction site, assured to deploy an additional excavator.

The gup also said that there is a need of a bridge over Roong River at the base of Jigmechholing. “Without a bridge there, the farm road would be useless during monsoon as vehicles would not be able to cross the swollen river.”

He said that the road’s construction would be completed by the end of this financial year if they do not encounter rocky cliff or face machine breakdown problem.

Meanwhile, villagers of Gong have contributed at least five days of compulsory unpaid labour for the construction of the road.

Village elders say they contribute labour whenever the construction reaches a dense forest or a rocky cliff. Gong has 176 households.

Nirmala Pokhrel | Tsirang