Residents of several Tarai villages have urged Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal to raise during his upcoming visit to New Delhi the issue of inundation caused by the structures built by India along its border with Nepal.

Complaining that hectares of land in the bordering Nepali territory are inundated each year due to the dams and other infrastructures constructed near the no-man’s land by the Indian authorities, the villagers asked the PM to attach priority to the issue in his meetings in the Indian capital.

People from Baidauli, Rangapur and Parsohiya VDCs in Kapilvastu district want Dahal to raise the problems caused by the Mahali Sagar and Bajaha dams with his Indian counterpart. They claimed that about 300 hectares of land on the Nepal side is inundated in the rainy season due to the structures.

“PM Dahal said he had good relations with the Indian prime minister. We hope our problem will be solved when he returns from India,” said Haridwar Yadav, a farmer. According to the locals, border pillars numbered 553 and 554 are submerged during monsoon.

In the district, the Bajaha dam inundates around 400 hectares of cultivable land in Pipara, Titirkhi, Rangapur, Baluhawa and Pakadi VDCs.

In Saptari, the people of the Tilathi area asked Dahal to take initiatives to solve the inundation caused by a borderside dam constructed by India.

A nasty clash ensued between Nepali and Indian nationals at Tilathi earlier in July over the issue of inundation caused by a makeshift dam built in the Indian territory. The Nepali side had removed the levee that the Indian side had built allegedly encroaching on the no-man’s land.

“How long should we endure the problem of inundation? We requested PM Dahal to solve the problem during his India visit,” said Dineshwor Mishra, a former chairman of the Tilathi VDC.