Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay said he would personally investigate the construction of the Korphu gewog centre road in Trongsa. He said this while meeting with the people at the gewog centre yesterday.

Lyonchoen said people must be concerned looking at the slow progress of the gewog road. It has been more than a year since the work was awarded to the contractor but black topping is yet to start. “I am more worried than you,” he said.

Lyonchoen reminded the people that government has paid Nu 86 million (M) which is some Nu 0.4M per household if the cost is broken down. He expressed concern that such a huge amount of fund may be going to waste. There are 218 households in the gewog.

During the meeting, Korphu’s ex-Gup Wangda also requested Lyonchoen to investigate what could have lead to the poor performance of the black topping work. “I don’t know who has failed, the dzongkhag, gewog or the contractor,” said the former gup.

Wangda also said it has been more than a year since the work was awarded to the contractor. The work progress we see today is barely five percent.

Responding to this, Lyonchoen said the actual work progress is at 19 percent currently and the time of the contract completed is 56 percent. Going by this rate of progress, there is a high chance that the contractor might fail, Lyonchoen pointed out.

“We should terminate the contractor if he fails and definitely will have to award the work to another one,” Lyonchoen said, adding that he will return to Korphu this autumn to inspect the work progress.

Local Chengala said he feels relieved that the Prime Minister will personally investigate the blacktopping progress. “We were worried and dissatisfied with the work progress,” he said.

The 19.5km gewog centre road starts from the Trongsa-Zhemgang highway at Reotala. The contract period for blacktopping the road is 24 months. The contract period started from April 2016.

The contractor is yet to start blacktopping work.

With three gewog centres falling on highways, the Korphu gewog centre road is one of the last gewog centre roads to be black topped in Trongsa. Blacktopping of the Nubi gewog centre road is ongoing.

Lyonchoen got delayed in meeting with the public of Korphu gewog as his helicopter could not fly over some high passes due to the weather. Lyonchoen left for Bumdeling in Tashiyangtse in the afternoon.

Nima Wangdi | Nabji

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