Nepalgunj, August 17

Delay in completion of Sikta Irrigation Project, one of the national glory projects worth over 25 billion rupees has affected farmers who lamented that they had to solely depend on rainwater for farming.

While part of the project’s main canal near Changainala, which was damaged last year is under repair, a dispute

regarding one of its subsidiary canals is likely to stretch further the project completion period.

“Though we wanted to release water into the main canal this monsoon, that did not happen due to unfinished repair work of the damaged stretch,” said Sikta Irrigation Project Nepalgunj Chief Krishna Nepal.

“Though the eastern stretch of the canal has been irrigating fields in RaptiSonari Rural Municipality, we could not provide irrigation facility in Kohalpur Municipality, and Khajura and Baijanath rural municipalities,” said Nepal.

Construction of subsidiary canals of the project has stopped after Pappu Construction failed to do timely work. For instance, construction of Dudawa canal, a subsidiary had to be completed by last December. However, Pappu Construction Pvt Ltd which was supposed to start construction work in 2016 has done nothing as of yet.

The company was awarded contract to construct the 32.2km Dudawa subsidiary canal and link it to the main canal, for some 980 million rupees.

Pappu Construction has filed a writ at the High Court over the issue of construction. The company moved the court after the project decided to fine it about 10 million rupees for failure to initiate and complete the project.