Kathmandu, October 30
Police have taken Director General of the Department of Water Resources and Irrigation Dinesh Rajauria and Director of the Sunkoshi Marin Diversion Multipurpose Project Krishna Prasad Rijal into custody following a directive from the Prime Minister’s Office.
According to a senior police source, Rajauria was detained in Siraha and Rijal in Sindhuli. However, neither of them has been kept in police custody.
Both officials were handed over to the Prime Minister’s Office in Singha Durbar, where they are currently being kept, the source told Onlinekhabar.
“We acted after receiving an order to detain and bring them in. They are not in our custody at present. We handed them over to the Prime Minister’s Office,” the source said.
It is suspected that the two officials were detained in connection with the contract for the Sunkoshi Marin project.
Earlier, the Department of Water Resources and Irrigation had terminated the contract for the project. The contract with Patel-Raman JV was terminated in November last year, during the tenure of the interim government, and work has yet to resume.
The detention of the department’s director general and the project director while the process for awarding a new contract is underway has drawn particular attention.
