India to construct 42km concrete embankment in Rapti River

By Our Correspondent, Nepalgunj, Aug. 17: For the first time, the Government of India has agreed to construct a 42km long concrete embankment on the Rapti River to control erosion and flooding in Banke district.

For about a decade and a half, Nepal has been demanding with India to construct the embankment, but after discussions held at different times and stages, now the Indian side has agreed to give a grant of Rs. 10.44 billion to build a concrete embankment on the river.

Jit Bahadur Thapa, Chief of People’s Embankment Programme, Field Office No. 6 Lamahi, said that the 14th joint meeting of the high officials of the Irrigation Department of India and Nepal, which was held recently in Kathmandu, had decided to provide a grant to implement the project. 

Thapa, who participated in the meeting as a member of the Nepali team, said that it was a great achievement that India agreed to build a 42km concrete embankment on the Rapti River. It will save lives of thousands of people along the river in the district. 

He said that after a long discussion, India approved the budget with the agreement to build 42km - 35km of concrete embankment and 7km of earth embankment - on both sides of the Rapti River. According to Thapa, the Nepali technical team submitted a budget of Rs. 12.97 billion rupees including for the creation of the Detailed Project Report to build the embankment. But India agreed to help in the construction by cutting the size of the financial support by Rs. 2.53 billion.

There is a plan to construct an embankment from Pillar No. 54 (currently from Duduwa Rural Municipality-1 to north-west Kachanapur and north-east Winauna) near Holiya in Banke, which is located in the Nepal-India border area.

It has also been agreed to build the embankment within five years. Nepal has to invest Rs. 1 billion in the project. 

Stating that a letter has been received that a meeting of the sub-committee involving the officials of both countries will be held in Kathmandu on August 22, Thapa said that the programme will be finalized in that meeting and submitted to the 15th high-level joint meeting to be held after a few months. The process for the contract to construct the project will be initiated after that. 

Due to the Laxmanpur Barrage, 22 km long Kalkalwa embankment and high road built by India near the border, about 30,000 hectares of Nepali land in Banke gets flooded every year due to the obstruction of water flow. About 27,750 citizens of 4,500 families are affected by inundation every year.

Jagdish Bahadur Singh, Chairman of the Laxmanpur Barrage Victims’ Struggle Committee, said that after the construction of the embankment, the people who have been living at risk of erosion and flooding for a long time can have a sigh of relief as the project will ease their lives.