NEPALGUNJ, July 6:  For Gopal Giri of Nepalgunj’s Newroad, monsoon is nothing but a source of trouble. When the rainy season arrives, his peace of mind gets lost. 

 “Rain means a ring of worry. We can’t sleep well, we can’t live with peace,” he lamented. “This happens every year, houses get inundated, everything turns upside down,” Giri adds. 

 It is not just during heavy rains that Giri’s house gets innundated; even little rain is enough to do that. 
 “Water enters my house even during normal rainfall. I do not know what to do about it,” said Giri. 
 Nepalgunj locals have faced this hassle for long. Water level in several areas of the district including Newroad goes high just when it starts to rain. The lack of water passages has left Nepalgunj town in a sorry state. 

 “I built my house 14 years ago at Newroad. Since the last one decade, this problem of inundation has been consistent, we don’t know whether we would ever get rid of this,” he wondered.

 There are drainage on both sides of Newroad from bus park to the Triveni turning. But water no more flows through the drainage system. As a result, reaches their house, according to the locals. 

 “Rain water does not pass through the passages which are blocked by filth. So every monsoon,  water flows to the settlements,” Giri stated. He added that over 50 percent of houses in Newroad get submerged in water during monsoon. 

 “The market, crossroads, houses all gets inundated. Life goes out of track,” Giri said. 
 Water coming through Ranjha, Karkado and bus park area needs to flow through the main and auxiliary drains, which are blocked since long. 

 “The drain pipes have become useless. Garbage might have blocked it. It’s rotten and gone out of use,” said Krishna Prasad Shrestha, executive member of FNCCI. “All the water gets collected at Setu and floods the entire town. It’s happening every year,” he added. 

Under the ‘Integrated urban development’ and ‘Regional Urban Development Project’ Nepalgunj Sub-metropolis was supposed to fix the drainage system by now. However, despite investing millions of rupees, there has been no progress in this regard. While locals put the blame on the sub-metropolis, the latter defends its failure saying ‘several obstructions’ came its way. 

 According to Giri, the budget that needed to be spent for building, maintaining or repairing the drainage system has all gone to ‘the pockets of politicians’. “That’s why, the situation is like this,” he fumed. 

 Meanwhile, deputy mayor of the sub-metropolis, Uma Thapa Magar stated that the projects under ‘Integrated Urban Development’ and ‘Regional Urban Development’ have come to a halt. “Until they resume, there is no permanent solution to drainage and other projects. ADB funded projects have been facing obstructions since long,” she said.

 
• houses
 
• get
 
• inundated
 
• every