Nepal, in a diplomatic note to India, raised concern over the damage caused on its side of the border because of the heavy explosions being undertaken by Indian authorities in Pithoragarh district for building a crucial border road near the Mahakali river in Uttrakhand, media reports say. Nepal has also called for joint inspections of the damage. 

India has been building a road from Pithoragarh district that would connect it to Mansarovar in China’s Tibet autonomous region via Lipulekh. The construction in mountain terrain entails blasting rocks which, in turn, are depositing on Mahakali river in Nepal’s Dharcula district, blocking local roads there. 

In the past year, local authorities in Nepal raised several objections with district officials in India’s Pithoragarh district. Later, they asked Nepal’s home ministry to take up the issue with India through the foreign ministry. 

“At least four different activities have taken place across the Mahakali river in the last one year and we have been voicing concerns with the Foreign Ministry but there was little progress,” a home ministry official in Nepal was quoted as saying by The Kathmandu Post.

A week earlier, local officials asked the home ministry to stop the blasting activities and to clean up the debris in the Mahakali river. Thereafter the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote to the Government of India through the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu. 

Earlier, Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, in an interview to BBC, had claimed that all “misunderstandings” with India were resolved. Significantly, Nepal’s foreign ministry, this time, has not commented publicly on the issue so far.  

(SAM)