Radhe Shyam Maurya of Hirminiya-9 lost his house constructed near the Nepal-India border to floods in August last year. “Had the Indian side not constructed the road extending to no man’s land, the calamity would never have happened,” he said, adding that he too would have been swept away if rescue workers had not reached there in time.
He said rescue workers made an outlet digging across a road constructed by India in the southern side. Even the Indian Seema Suraksha Bal had extended a helping hand instead of intervention at that time, he said.
Gokarna Mishra of Hirminiya-1 said the Indian side constructed the road “deliberately” when everyone in Nepal was focused on the Constituent Assembly elections and formation of a new government in Nepal. “They worked at full pace in order to avoid public backlash,” he said. The locals, who did not care much about it earlier, acknowledged the fact that the road was the reason behind the inundation of the area in mid-August.
Locals said the Indian side has continued the road work despite the damages last year and an agreement reached during the secretarial-level meeting between the two countries in Pokhara about a month ago. During the meeting, the Indian side had agreed to halt road construction work to conduct a proper field survey to assess its impact on the bordering area.
Meanwhile, a committee formed to conduct the feasibility study has submitted its report proposing a number of culverts and bridges to avoid inundation in the northern side. A team conducting independent study, meanwhile, alleged that India has flouted international legal rules which explicitly state that a country cannot construct such structures unilaterally within eight kilometres from the border.
The team comprising locals, civil society members, journalists, flood victims and political leaders had conducted a field survey of the area on Tuesday.
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