The commercial viability of Kathmandu-Kulekhani-Hetauda road tunnel is unquestionably attractive given the traffic pressure it is likely to have.


Nepal Infrastructure Development Company, a private sector initiative led by Immediate Past President of Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) has shouldered the task of opening up the Kathmandu-Kulekhani-Hetauda road tunnel. This tunnel would substantially reduce the length of the road connecting Kathmandu with Hetauda to 50 km.


Fully functional roads that now connect Kathmandu with Hetauda are much longer. The most used Kathmandu- Mugling-Narayanghat-Hetauda road’s length is 224 kilometers (kms) while the largely discarded Tribhuvan Highway is 133 kms. The proposed fast track will be about 80 kms long and would open at a point of some 20 kms east of the main town of Hetauda. However, the distance with this tunnel would be only about 50 kms and the total travel time from Kathmandu to Hetauda will reduce to barely one hour. The pace of progress in the work to construct the tunnel has been more than impressive; demonstrating the advantage that a private sector led project can have even in infrastructure development aspect. The Company has also been a first test case of much talked about Public-Private Partnership and serves as the actual implementation of BOOT (Build, Operate, Own, and Transfer) model through a project entirely financed domestically. This also sets an example of how a large sized investment of about Rs 20 billion for this project alone could be generated within the country if a viable project is chosen and all users and stakeholders are made effective owners of the project.


Since the company got license in the third week of May 2012 from the government, it has created a tight timeline to complete the Detailed Project Report (DPR) by the end of November. The commercial viability of the tunnel is unquestionably attractive given the traffic pressure it is likely to have. This model also constitutes a rationale that the carrying capacity of the tunnel should also be fixed by the research on existing and potential increase in traffic flow between Hetauda and Kathmandu.


Most importantly, without upgrading the total stretch of the Balkhu-Pharping- Kulekhani-Hetauda road, only the proposed tunnel of mere three-kilometer length is unlikely to give any substantial benefit to the national economy and return to the investors. Had the entire road length been part of this project, it would only have delivered results as aspired.