But their hopes were dashed when the raging floods swept away the embankment on the very first year of its construction. The embankment was built by People´s Embankment Program and Water Induced Disaster Control Office. [break]
The District Development Committee (DDC) has also been spending hundreds of thousands of rupees apart from the PEP and Water Induced Disaster Control Office to control floods, but to no avail. The embankments constructed at the cost of millions of rupees have been swept away at some places and buried under sand at others.
Kankai alone wreaked havoc on three such projects including, the 600m x 15m concrete barrier constructed at the cost of Rs 22 millions in Kumarkhod-9, Simalbadi. The river then moved toward settlements in Kumarkhod, Sharanamati and Tanghandubba village development committees (VDC).
Another 260-meter embankment made of clay and stone in the same ward was also destroyed by the raging river. Similarly, yet another 125-meter barrier constructed at Panchgachhi at the cost of Rs 500,000 by Water Induced Disaster Control Office was also swept away by Kankai.
“The big-budget embankments are meant to provide long-term solution to floods. What is the use of constructing such embankments if they give way on the first year of construction?” questions Bhumi Niraula of Shivagunj-1.
Chief of Pep in Jhapa Surya Thapa, however, claimed that embankments have given way at only a few places. “We cannot say all the embankments have been destroyed.”
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