A patient travelling on a bus died Friday morning in the traffic gridlock along the Nagdhunga-Naubise section of the Prithvi Highway the main entry point to Kathmandu.
Kidney patient Rup Lal Sah, 37, of Gaur municipality 7 in Rautahat district died in the lap of his mother waiting inside the stranded bus (Na 7 Kha 5364). The bus was stuck since two in the morning and Sah breathed his last three hours later.
Tens of thousands passengers are being stuck in the section in the past one week. Traffic police claim that there is no problem while going out of the capital but there have been serpentine queues of vehicles coming to Kathmandu from across the country.
"The gridlock is one-way. There is problem while coming to Kathmandu," Sub-inspector with the traffic police at Nagdhunga Bidur Mani Bhattarai told Setopati.
The majority of large vehicles coming to Kathmandu are those carrying goods," he added pointing that 95 out of 100 vehicles coming into the Valley are trucks. "There have been gridlocks with the trucks carrying heavy loads stuck on the road due to problems like gear failure and others," he reasoned.
Vehicles are stuck for up to seven hours in the six-kilometer stretch from Naubise to Nagdhunga. The queues reach back up to Dharke of Dhading due to the gridlock in the section. The situation has been worsened as the road is being repaired ahead on Dashain festival.
"The road was repaired but blacktopping has already scrapped off. The loaded vehicles scrape off blacktopping immediately. Rain continues and the road already has potholes with blacktopping scrapped," he elaborated.
He revealed that there is no way the gridlock can be immediately ended but efforts are on to lessen it. He attributed the gridlock to trucks bringing in additional supplies for the upcoming festival and proposed that passengers should be prioritized over goods. "We must allow trucks only during a certain stretch of time," he added.
