Phurpa Lhamo | Wangdue 

With the ground-breaking ceremony conducted on February 20, work to construct the 20.29km Wandgue-Dagana bypass has begun.

Once completed, the bypass would reduce travel time and distance between Wangdue and Dagana.

Wangdue Dzongdag, Sonam Jamtsho, said there was a high possibility that the road could turn into a secondary national highway in future. “It will reduce the distance by 36km and travel time by two hours.” Today, people travel 168kms between Daga dzong and Wangdue.

The new road will be connected through Wogayna village in Wangdue’s Daga gewog and Lhaptsakarchu village of Tseza gewog in Dagana.

Apart from benefiting travellers, the road will also benefit people in Kamina village, which is identified as one of the remotest villages in Daga gewog.

Five households in Kamina don’t have a road connection.  Villagers only have access to solar energy and don’t have grid supply.

A villager, Passang, said the new road meant opportunities for them to open shops for travellers to generate income.

He said farmers would also sell their farm produces, which rotted in the fields or had to be fed to animals until now.

While many are excited about the new road, concerns regarding the existing farm road from Kamichu to Wogayna village were raised.

To this, Dzongdag Sonam Jamtsho said that, as the existing road was a farm road, the road width was only 3.5 metres.

However, if the new road was identified as a secondary national highway, the farm road width would be expanded to 8m.

Meanwhile, work to construct the 20.29km road has been divided between Dagana and Wangdue dzongkhags.

Wangdue dzongkhag will execute works on 8.29km from Wogayna to Kamina of Daga gewog.  Dagana dzongkhag will execute works on 12km from Laptsakarchu to Wogayna village worth Nu 21.291 million (M).

Works and human settlement ministry had awarded Nu 36M to Wangdue dzongkhag to execute the work.  Both dzongkhags will execute the work departmentally, which is expected to save budget. 

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