The annual maintenance of the embankment was also not done this year, apparently because locals did not allow the contractors to work at the site. People in the surrounding villages were unhappy with the contractors, mainly because they were not being employed for work. However, they said the matters never reached a point where contractors could have been prevented from working at the site.

“There is a clause in the Kosi agreement between India and Nepal that though the maintenance work would be carried out by Indian contractors, at least 60 per cent of the labourers employed for the work should be from Nepal. This was not being followed by the contractors for the past few years, which led to widespread resentment in the surrounding villages. Heated arguments had taken place a couple of times,” said Shamsuddin, who lives in Kusaha.

A Nepali police officer said he had not heard of any incident in which contractors were not allowed to work at the site. “If any such thing had happened, the nearby police station would have come to know. If not, the contractors should have informed the police station. No such thing has happened. This year we did not even see any surveyors coming to the site to assess the situation of the embankment ahead of the monsoon,” he said.

However, The Indian Express obtained a copy of a wireless message sent by the contractors to the state Government in which it is alleged that the engineers and workers were threatened by the people here and were asked to leave the site at Kusaha. It is also alleged that once the staff had left the site, the materials and equipment stored there were stolen by the locals. The message said an FIR had been filed in this regard on August 16 at the Lokahi police station in Nepal.

... contd.