The Narayani Irrigation Management Office has launched a campaign to demolish huts and other structures built illegally along the bank of the Gandak Canal.

The campaign began this morning and targets the stretch from Janaki Tole to Gandak Chowk. 

According to the Office, preparations are in place to demolish more than 300 structures, including huts, sheds and fish ponds. 

The demolition drive is being carried out with the assistance of the Nepal Police, the Armed Police Force and other agencies.

Office Chief Manoj Prasad Patel said they started clearing approximately 26 kilometers of encroached land on the canal bank. Four excavators have been mobilized to raze the structures.

Nepal and India had signed the Gandak Irrigation and Hydropower Project agreement on December 4, 1956. Under the agreement, the Government of India developed an irrigation system by constructing a barrage in the Narayani River. 

The project aims to provide irrigation facilities to both countries.

The Government of India later handed over the Gandak Canal to Nepal in 1975–76. 

The canal has a capacity of 850 cusecs of water, intended to irrigate 37,400 hectares of land in the southern parts of Parsa, Bara and Rautahat districts.

Canal water enters Nepal through Janaki Tole, located along the Nepal-India border. 

Within Nepal, the canal stretches a total of 81 kilometers and includes nine distribution facilities and 87 other supporting structures. 

Despite the agreement to irrigate 37,400 hectares of land, the currently irrigated area is only about 28,000 hectares, Patel said.