The Bhutanese Leading the way.
The Phuentsholing Thromde is carrying out major river training works at the base of Kailashwor hill as protection from the Amochhu river that spates every monsoon and wreaks havoc to settlements on the Amochhu banks.
The training works include dredging the river channel for 3 km with a width of 50 m and a 4 m depth and the municipal office is not paying a cent to get the work done.
According to Phuentsholing Thrompon Uttar Kumar Rai the contractors engaged in the work will recover their costs from the sand and stone dredged from the river.
“If we put the proposal to government it might take a long time to get approval and we wanted to implement the construction work immediately before monsoon starts,” Thrompon Uttar Kumar Rai said. Therefore a decision was taken locally in consultation with the relevant stakeholders of Phuentsholing and approval for dredging sought from NEC. “The dragging work is solely done for public benefits and to safeguard Phuentsholing town in local government’s capacity,” he said.
The estimated budget for the dredging work is around Nu 68 Million, which the contractors will recover from the sand and stone dredged under strict monitoring by the Thromde, Forest and the NRDCL.
Sherab of Rigsar construction, one of the contractors engaged for the work said they are confident to complete the work before the monsoon this year. “We are working on a 24 hrs in shift system (10 hrs basis) and we have deployed 50 Indian and Bhutanese labourers,” said Sherab. Rigsar construction has also placed 13 excavators and 19 dumpers at the worksite.
“We are spending Nu 350,000 for oil alone for the project,” said Sherab. “I don’t know if we can recover our investment through the sands and stones we have collected so far, because whatever we have collected has been piled at river side and there is a high risk of it being washed away before we can collect it.”
