By Karuna Thapa
Kathmandu, March 27
The preliminary report for the China-Nepal interstate railway will be completed in three stages. The project’s full feasibility study will be conducted in three phases, according to a memorandum of agreement on a technical support plan signed on Saturday during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Nepal.
The agreement was made to undertake technical support arrangements for completing a
detailed study under the umbrella agreement of the previous China-Nepal interstate railway
project, according to Keshav Kumar Sharma, Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Physical
Infrastructure and Transport.
”China has now chosen to do its own full feasibility assessment,” Sharma added. The first phase will consist of mapping, the second will consist of a field survey, and the third will consist of report writing with a cost estimate.
A full feasibility study will be conducted, according to the preliminary research report for the Kerung-Kathmandu railway, which China handed over on December 10, 2021.
The study has been put on hold in China due to the outbreak. Two years ago, the Nepalese
government delegated all work on the comprehensive feasibility study of this railway to the
Chinese government.
The Chinese team has yet to begin fieldwork. Because of the strict regulation in place to
regulate the corona, the Chinese government has stated that technical teams will not be able to arrive.
In November 2021, the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport wrote to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asking for a full feasibility assessment of the Kerung-Kathmandu railway. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed in October 2019 during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Nepal.
The MoU was completed at a meeting of Nepali and Chinese officials held in Kathmandu in the second week of December 2019.
The Chinese technical team, on the other hand, is yet to arrive in Kathmandu. Because the
project will be completed with 98 percent of tunnels and bridges in challenging terrain, the
research will take a long period. China has previously said that the thorough investigation will take 42 months to complete.
