The government has spent more than Rs 5 billion on the construction of embankments and other structures along the rivers in Tarai districts, which recently witnessed the worst water-induced disaster in many years. 

Of the total Rs 5.44 billion spent on river training projects, which include construction of dykes and other structures, the President Chure-Tarai Madhes Conservation Development Board (PCTMCDB) has spent Rs 2.04 billion. 

Rest of the spending—Rs 3.40—was made through the Department of Water Induced Disaster Management (DWIDM). 

The board, which was formed in June 2014 to stop further degradation of the entire Chure region due to illegal mining of sands, boulders and other resources, has been working on seven intensive rivers across the plains. 

A large portion of board’s budget has been allocated for river training projects that include embankment and other infrastructure construction. 

The board has allocated 38.33 per cent in Fiscal Year 2014-15; 46.88 per cent in 2015-16; and 44.43 per cent in 2016-17 of its total budget respectively. 

“River training projects have been one of the major priorities of the President Chure-Tarai Madhes Conservation and Management Master Plan. So the majority of budget has been dedicated towards river management,” said Keshab Raj Goutam, spokesperson for the DWIDM.   

The Board’s river training projects that started with four rivers —Ratu, Bakaiya, Jalad and Balan in 2014-15—have been working on eight intensive rivers including Jogbudha, Banganga, Rangun, with the Tudela river being the recent addition. 

Interestingly, these very rivers, for which the whopping budget was spent, wreaked havoc in Tarai districts. At least 156 people were killed, thousands of houses were destroyed and property worth millions of rupees was destroyed. 

But the concerned authorities said extreme weather events and failure to adopt the best designs for such incidents caused the disaster. 

“The recent flooding was due to extreme weather events which we might not have anticipated while designing infrastructure. The designs we have developed might have failed to uphold the sudden pressure,” said Goutam, adding, “We are assessing what happened.”

According to DWIDM data, last fiscal year, it constructed 8.576km of dyke along the Lal Bakaiya, Banganga, Rangun and Jogbudha rivers under PCTMCDB’s project at the cost of Rs 765.8 million.  

Besides, implementing board’s project, the DWIDM also built embankment along 29 different rivers in 18 districts of Tarai under the People’s Embankment Programme. 

Since its beginning in 2009-10, so far 197.78km of embankments have been built at Rs 3.4 billion.  

The President Chure-Tarai Madhes Conservation and Management Master Plan which was adopted this year has identified a total of 164 rivers where the PCTMCDB will be working. Currently, the board has been running integrated river system management on 52 rivers. 

The PCTMCDB authorities and DWIDM officials, however, point at resource constraints for not being able to build dykes in sufficient numbers to control floods.