India has started a 1,258 km road project, a part of which passes through Nepali soil along the Tanakpur Dam in Kanchanpur district. Authorities in Kanchanpur are meanwhile unaware about this.

Chief District Officer Kumar Bahadur Khadka said the Indian side did not consult his office before starting the project.

“We don’t know how they began constructing the road on Nepali territory without consulting us,” he said.

Indian Lok Nirman Vibhag began the road project from the last week of July. The project technicians are currently working at a site near Bhramhadev Bazaar in Bhimdatta Municipality-9.

CP Sharma, engineer of the project, admitted that the road was being constructed 150 metres inside the Nepali territory,

“But not without the knowledge of the Nepali side,” he claimed. “We are working as per the high-level agreement between the two countries.” The district officials have no idea about the said agreement.

Ram Nath, the ward chairman of Bhimdatta Municipality-9, said the municipality had not been communicated about the agreement, neither by the Indian side nor by the government of Nepal.

“This is outright bullying. I have presented this issue in the municipal meeting,” he said.  The area where India is constructing the road is already a contested boundary. The Indian authorities have long been claiming that half of Bhramhadev Bazaar falls on their part of the country.

SP Binodraj Shrestha of the Armed Police Force said it was for the governments of the two countries to sort out the border dispute.