Monitoring of Nepal Benefit Scheme mere formality, say Gandak people

People suffering from the Gandak canal have blamed the concerned authority that a joint monitoring team comprising the officials from Nepal and India pretended the monitoring of the construction activities under the Nepal Benefit Scheme, state-owned news agency RSS reports. The joint technical team had visited the Gandak area after complaints rife about the irregularities in the construction activities under the Nepal Benefit Scheme and the subsequent pressure from the Gandak River Control Struggle Committee. However, the victims angered more after the joint team included employees involved in the irregularities for monitoring. Struggle Committee secretary Dudhnath Gupta told RSS the monitoring conducted with the involvement of a tainted persons would not be fair but meaningless. Although secretary-level meeting had decided to check the progress and quality of the works, an Indian technologist of the monitoring team said the team was not given authority to check the quality but only review the progress. Struggle Committee Vice-Chairman Krishna Bahadur Thapa said the monitoring team just dramatized in the name of monitoring, as it did not monitor entire activities. The monitoring team including director at the Western Regional Irrigation, Rajendra Prasad Adhikari, Hari Ram Shrestha from Irrigation Department, and Chief of Western Regional Irrigation Development Division No. Prachanda Dev Bista from Nepal while chief engineer Sachchidanand Prasad Singh from India. The Struggle Committee further said more than a dozen officials directly involved in the irregularities were in the monitoring team too. They informed and interpreted the project as per their wish and need, the Committee argued.Nepalnews.com