The Damak Chisapani road new contract has moved a step closer, with the government publishing an intention notice to approve a fresh contract for the Mangsebung Larumba Chisapani section. Infrastructure Development Minister Sunil Lamsal announced the development in a Facebook post on October 29, 2026, Nepal time, presenting it as a commitment finally being carried forward for a road that local people have waited on for years.<\/p>\n
The section sits on the Damak Chisapani road, which links Damak in Jhapa district with Mangsebung in Ilam district in eastern Nepal. For communities along the route, the road is a daily link to markets, schools, health services and district headquarters, and its condition shapes farm incomes, travel times and access in the monsoon season. A blacktopped, all weather surface would therefore matter well beyond the construction site itself, and the long delay in upgrading this stretch is a large part of why the announcement has drawn attention.<\/p>\n
The history behind the new contract explains much of that delay. A contract for about 25.5 kilometres of this section was signed in Falgun 2076, with a target of completing blacktopping within three years. According to the minister, the contractor did not move the work forward even after repeated reminders, correspondence and formal notices. The contract was therefore terminated under its own terms. The minister also stated that the performance guarantee was confiscated, that the cost of completing the remaining work would be recovered as government dues, and that the contractor was placed on the blacklist.<\/p>\n
A fresh contract could not follow at once. The minister said the contractor challenged the termination decision in court, and the resulting legal process held up a new tender. Only after the legal process and various disputes were resolved, and after source agreement, an updated cost estimate and an updated design were completed, was a fresh tender invited for the section. That sequence, from termination to court case to re tender, is the reason a road that was already under contract years ago is only now returning to the contracting stage.<\/p>\n
The latest step is the completion of bid evaluation for the new tender and the publication of an intention notice to approve the contract. An intention notice is the formal signal that a bidder has been selected for approval, and it comes before the formal award and signing. With this notice published, the minister said the process of upgrading a road left stranded for three decades has moved forward. His brief comment on the announcement summed up the political framing in a single line: This was our commitment.<\/p>\n
What happens next will be watched closely in Jhapa and Ilam. Once the formal award is made, the focus will shift to mobilisation, work scheduling and whether blacktopping of the 25.5 kilometre section proceeds without the stoppages that marked the earlier contract. Residents and local representatives will also want clarity on the construction timetable, on traffic management while work is under way, and on quality control for the finished surface. For the ministry, the project is also a test of a wider approach it has used in recent months, terminating non performing contracts and re tendering the work rather than letting stalled projects linger.<\/p>\n
The Damak Chisapani road new contract also fits a pattern seen in other recent ministry decisions, where long delayed road sections have been brought back to tender after termination. Related coverage on this site includes the Mechi Corridor contract termination<\/a> and the Achham road contract termination<\/a>, both of which followed a similar course of termination followed by a fresh tender process. If the Mangsebung Larumba Chisapani contract is awarded and completed as planned, it would close one of the longer running gaps in the eastern hills road network and give the Damak to Mangsebung corridor the surfaced road its users have sought for years.<\/p>\n