Chimi Dema | Dagana

Citing prolonged service delivery and difficulties related to roadblock, Dagana’s 9th Dzongkhag Tshogdu (DT) members proposed that Sunkosh-Dagapela highway be looked after by the Department of Roads (DoR) sub-division office in Tsendagang.

The 44km road between Sunkosh and Dagapela was taken care of by Tsendagang DoR sub-division in the past. Since last year, however, Tsirang DoR sub-division took charge of the highway to balance workload between the two sub-division offices.

The DT members said that the Tsirang DoR sub-division taking care of the highway, which is in Dagana, was inconvenient, especially during monsoon when there are frequent roadblocks.

“There is no doubt about how timely service delivery would be affected as officials have to come from Tsirang now,” said Kana Mangmi Sangay.

Tashiding Gup Namgay Pelden said that certain stretches of the road experience frequent roadblocks in summer. “Even when the road was taken care of by the Tsendagang DoR sub-division, there were times when we had to wait for hours with a corpse and patient due to a roadblock.”

The gup also urged expediting road improvement work before the onset of monsoon.

Meanwhile, assistant engineer with Tsirang DOR sub-division, Arjun Bdr Katwal, who attended the DT, said that Tsirang sub-division took charge of the road to share workload of Tsendagang DoR sub-division and improve service delivery.

“Dagapela-Dalbari road which is currently under construction has to be looked after by Tsendagang sub-division once it is through. At the same time, the office is also taking care of the 18km Lhamoidzingkha-Raidak road,” he said.

The Tsirang DOR office, however, is taking care of shorter road lengths after gewog centre roads were handed over to respective gewogs.

Speaking to Kuensel, Executive Engineer with Tsirang DOR sub-division, Choeten Tshering, said that a sub-division office was mandated to look after a 150km of road going by the DoR’s guideline.