KATHMANDU, March 3: Enraged by regular street protests launched by Koshi flood victims in Sunsari district thereby halting the work on plugging the breach in the river embankment at Kusaha, the Chief Minister of the Indian state of Bihar wrote on Monday to the Indian Minister for External Affairs to use diplomatic channels to end the protests.
In his letter to External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar urged him to take up the issue "with the government of Nepal to secure immediate commencement of the breach closure works by ending the ongoing agitation by Nepalese citizens", according to the Times of India (ToI) newspaper.
"The agitation has cut off supply lines to the breach site, resulting in acute shortage of essentials like fuel and other commodities", the letter said. The Bihar Chief Minister is apprehensive that any delay in plugging the breach would result in another catastrophe, like what some Nepal Tarai districts and Bihar witnessed during the Koshi floods in the wake of a breach in the embankment at Kusaha last August.
The Koshi flood victims have been demanding rehabilitation and proper compensation and staging protests in Sunsari district near the Koshi breach site. Following a government decision to look into the matter, the agitators on Sunday halted their protest for 10 days.
Though Nepali and Indian experts have successfully restored the river flow to its original course, the work of raising and strengthening the embankment remains to be done in Nepal. "The ongoing agitation, however, disrupted the work, forcing the state to seek the Center´s intervention," ToI reported.
"Our officials took up the matter in right earnest and made all out efforts at every level to seek a way out of the present impasse, but in spite of the matter having been raised with the officials of Nepal, the Indian embassy in Kathmandu and ministry of water resources (India), there has been no improvement so far," Kumar wrote in his letter.
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