Flood relief, rehabilitation India's responsibility: Yadav

BY GOPAL KHANAL

NEW DELHI, Aug 31 - Foreign Minister Upendra Yadav, who is on a visit to India, said on Saturday that as per the Koshi Agreement it was India's responsibility to provide relief to the Koshi flood victims and rehabilitate them."It has been written in the agreement ...

He, however, said this was not a time to engage in any blame game but a time to resolve the problem at the earliest. He was referring to some Indian media reports blaming Nepal for the embankment breach that has displaced 50,000 people in Nepal and over a million in India.

He said he has urged Indian PM Dr Manamohan Singh and External Affairs Minister Pranav Mukherjee to arrange for the relief and rehabilitation of the flood-affected people.

He defended Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal's remark that the Koshi Agreement was a historic blunder. "It is blunder as we cannot even throw a brick when the river starts eroding the bank and displacing our people," he said.

Responding to repeated questions from Indian journalists on whether Nepal should take responsibility for the flood, Yadav said, "It was a mistake of the center (central government of India) and the Bihar government not to carry out timely maintenance of the embankment and it is baseless to blame the locals for chasing away the team deployed for repairing the embankment." He said the locals have cooperated with the maintenance team.