Sindhuli, June 13 -- Seven years into construction, progress on the Madan Bhandari Highway, a national pride project, remains slow, with only 51 percent of the work completed so far. Around 1.5 kilometre length of the 120-kilometre Sindhulimadhi-Hetauda stretch has yet to be blacktopped due to land disputes and budget constraints.

The most critical bottleneck lies in that 1.5-kilometre section that remains unfinished despite the rest of the road being largely operational. More than half a dozen areas still face road-related problems along the Sindhuli-Hetauda section. While 85 kilometres of the highway fall under Sindhuli and 35 kilometres under Makawanpur, construction had stalled in Sindhuli part primarily due to land acquisition dispu...