RAUTAHAT, JUNE 29
Armed Police Force in Rautahat have stopped repair work of a dam built in the Das Gaza area by the Indian side.
A number of villages, including Banjaraha and Auraiya in the district, are inundated every monsoon due to a high dam built by the Indian side by encroaching the no man's land on the border. Not only this, crops cultivated on a huge swath of land near the border of Nepali territory is also inundated and damaged every year because of the water blocked by the dam.
According to APF 11 No Battalion Rautahat Chief SP Surya Bahadur Sen Oli, security personnel were deployed to stop the repair work by the Indian side. "When we heard that the Indian side was unilaterally repairing the dam built by encroaching the Das Gaza area against the previous agreement to relocate the dam elsewhere, we immediately deployed our personnel and stopped the work," said Oli.
The dam was built 10 years ago. Though it has caused inundation of bordering villages every monsoon, nothing was done to end the plight until the then chief district officer Kiran Thapa held talks with the Indian side to demarcate the Das Gaza area, an agreement which materialised during the tenure of then CDO Basudev Ghimire.
It was during Ghimire's time that the Indian side, admitting that the dam was built on the encroached Das Gaza area, had agreed to relocate it further into Indian territory.
"They had said the dam would be relocated last year itself, but let alone relocating it, they are bolstering it by citing the rainy season now. As it was being repaired, the APF personnel stopped it," said Ward 1 Chairperson Bigu Byas of Ishanath Municipality, stressing the need for the central government to hold talks with the Indian government to end the problem of inundation caused by the dam once and for all.
Incumbent CDO Indradev Yadav said the Indian side had been asked to honour their past agreement to relocate the dam to save Nepali villages from inundation.
A version of this article appears in the print on June 30 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
